


not afraid to fall

by Quillium



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Gen, Peni makes inter-dimensional communicators so we can have inter-dimensional communication, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2019-09-28 18:13:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17187923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillium/pseuds/Quillium
Summary: Spider-man’s a good kid, and Jefferson’s beginning to come around to understanding why the other cops are so fond of him.Spider-man stares at Jefferson’s hand, a bit bewildered, like he can’t quite understand it, then he shakes it, quietly saying, “Appreciated.”ORMiles, after becoming Spider-man.





	1. Chapter 1

She’s sitting on his kitchen table, eating a bowl of cereal, one leg dangling over the edge and her foot cut off because the hologram couldn’t go that far.

“Morning,” Gwen grins, offering a jaunty wave, and Miles groans, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“Is there a way to make it so that this device _won’t_ turn on from your side?”

She hums a bit, because she’s mean like that, and then, laughing, “Nope. Peni has got me covered.”

Miles would like to preface by saying that he is very grateful that Peni has invented cross-dimensional-communicators. Very, very grateful. He loves his Spider-people, really, it’s just— “It’s too early for this,” he says, squinting down at his Steven Universe shirt, just _knowing_ that Gwen will make fun of him for wearing it. “I’m going back to bed.”

“Um, no,” Peter flickers up next to Gwen, blinking blearily at him with his chin propped up on his hands, “You’re going to check out your school’s art club today.”

Miles glares at Peter, “Shouldn’t you be with MJ?”

“That’s tomorrow,” Peter says.

Gwen raises an eyebrow, “Is it Tuesday?”

Peter stills, “Um.”

“Go, man!” Miles waves his hands at Peter, who groans loudly before his hologram fades away.

Gwen laughs, and then, flicking two fingers at Miles, “Guess you should be heading to your art club?”

“Do I have to?” Miles asks, dragging a hand down his face.

“Yes,” Gwen says. She mimics the shooing motion that Miles just made at Peter, “Go, shoo!”

“Love you, too,” Miles makes a face at her.

“Gross,” Gwen laughs, and blows him a mocking kiss. Miles grins at her, and she grins back. It’s nice, having Gwen around. She’s like the sister that he never had.

“How are you doing, making friends?” Miles asks, bouncing a bit on his toes.

Gwen hums, playing with her fingers a bit, and then, cocking her head to the side a bit, says, “We’ll talk later. Stop trying to distract me.”

He sighs, “Do I _have_ to go to the school’s art club? I don’t feel like I need to join any clubs. This school’s so pretentious and the bus there costs money and—“

“And you need to make friends that are part of your dimension,” Gwen raises an eyebrow, “Stop whining.”

“Fine,” Miles makes a face at Gwen, “Meanie.”

“Love you, too,” Gwen leans over and her hologram flickers out.

Looks like he’s all out of excuses.

Miles pulls on a sweater and shoves his inter-dimensional devices into his pockets. Time to go to some elitist art club to make friends, he supposes.

* * *

Jefferson is quiet as he surveys the damage from Doc Ock’s escape while they were transporting her to another prison, silent as he watches the flashing lights and the bits of her machine on the ground, as he watches Spider-man stare at the remnants of the van on the ground.

They were lucky, he knows, that Spider-man just so happened to be in the area, just so happened to be nearby to help make sure Doc Ock didn’t get further away.

Still, watching the hero touch two fingers to his collarbones, press his hand against his neck and wince, he doesn’t feel particularly lucky.

But what is he supposed to say? What _can_ he say? What can he do?

“We’re grateful for your help,” is all he can say, hands in his pockets, voice soft as he steps next to Spider-man. “Don’t know what we would have done without you on the scene.”

Spider-man’s hand snakes from his neck into his pocket, shoulders going stiff, before he adopts that fake-deep voice and says, “No problem, officer.”

He’s young, Jefferson thinks. The previous Spider-man was young, too.

He was part of the group that had seen the body—he had seen the bashed in skull, the broken arm, blunt force, mask off.

Miles, he recalls, was _supposed_ to be at school, but—he still doesn’t know the full reason behind what happened that night, Miles pressed into his chest, Rio’s quiet _he’s upset_ , doesn’t know how to feel about that small _do you really hate Spider-man_?

This new Spider-man is different. There’s something sort of jerky to his motions, like he’s not fully comfortable in his body, where the old one was fluid, sure of himself.

(The old one is dead. How does Jefferson stop the new one from becoming the same?)

“If you’re ever in need of help,” Jefferson holds out a hand, throat closing, “We’d be glad to return the favour.”

It smarts, breaking the law like this. But Spider-man’s a good kid, and Jefferson’s beginning to come around to understanding why the other cops are so fond of him.

Spider-man stares at Jefferson’s hand, a bit bewildered, like he can’t quite understand it, then he shakes it, quietly saying, “Appreciated.”

It’s the kind of slang that Miles would use—that strange slang, where the word is fancy but nobody would actually _use_ it in a normal conversation—and it almost makes Jefferson laugh.

Instead he squeezes lightly on Spider-man’s think fingers, lets go, and nods, once.

Spider-man nods back, salutes with two fingers against his brow, and vanishes.

(The new one does this a lot. The old one, he’s pretty sure, didn’t, but who is he to say?)

The red and blue lights of the police cars are still going strong, Doc Ock silent as she’s put away, and Jefferson straightens his jacket.

Back to work.

* * *

Miles is quiet as he presses a hand against Aaron’s punching bag, looking at it like he doesn’t know what to do with it.

Rio didn’t know Aaron that well. He was connected to her through other people. They had never really had a direct relationship, the two of them. To her, he had been her brother-in law.

Her husband’s brother.

Her son’s uncle.

A friend, maybe. Family, for sure. But distant family. Distant in all but physical means.

There are hints of Miles everywhere, though. In the pack of markers on the shelf. The little duffel bag of spray paint cans half-shoved under the bed. That stupid book on the quantum realm that Miles claimed he lost (and maybe he had, but she knows that he’d finished reading it).

It seems silly to her, to regret anything. She doesn’t regret not knowing Aaron better, not really. She doesn’t regret not being closer to him.

She regrets not thanking him, though, for always being there for her kid.

She regrets that she doesn’t know the proper things to say to Miles now that Aaron is gone.

She glances at the punching bag, at her kid, hung shoulders and lowered head, fingers twisting into his hoodie like he wants to vanish into it.

Rio can do this, at least.

She ruffles his hair and goes to stand behind the punching bag, nods at him and smiles as much as she’s able. “Well, go on, then,” Rio says, planting her feet the way that she remembers learning from some distant memory, “Punch the bag.”

He looks at her, kind of bewildered, but understanding dawns quick, and Miles whispers a quiet _thanks, ma,_ before bouncing on the balls of his feet, form not half bad as he twists into a punch, stance light, beating out a consistent sound.

 _Thump, thump, thump_.

Rio’s handled grief before. Of course she has. It’s practically a part of the job description for being a nurse, honestly.

It’s different, she supposes, when it’s family.

When he’s done, Miles steps away. Stares at the bag. Moves forward and pulls into her chest, fingers gathering her shirt by her shoulder blades, head resting in the crook of her elbow.

She holds him, presses her face into his hair, and breathes.

She has to pack Aaron’s things, she knows, but for now, she can hold her kid. She can do this, at least.

Miles is still, standing there, by Aaron’s punching bag, but she’s holding him in her arms and maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but Rio thinks that Miles will be alright.

* * *

“What’s that called?” Noir asks, leaning over the edge of the gargoyle to peek at the marker in Miles’ hand.

“Blue,” Miles says, filling in the empty space of his sketch with a few triangles, “The colour of the sky, remember?”

“But it’s different from the sky,” Noir frowns, peering up and then down again to Miles’ sketchpad. “It’s—it’s closer to black.”

“Darker,” Miles tilts his head.

“Darker,” Noir repeats, nodding, “The—shade?”

“Yeah,” Miles grins at Noir, crooked and weirdly proud, “The colour’s darker, but it’s still the same colour.”

“And—that?” Noir points at a spot on the sketchbook that’s purple, “Is that also blue?”

“Nah, that’s purple,” Miles taps the end of his marker against the sketchbook. “The Rubix cube doesn’t have purple, right?”

“No,” Noir sighs regretfully, “Purple—what things are purple, in your world?”

“Um… eggplants?” Miles scrunches up his nose, trying to think of things that are naturally purple, “Violets? I guess—do you have a flower, called a violet, in your world? I think that the flower’s named after the colour, and if your world doesn’t have colour—“ he shakes his head, “Never mind, I’m not going down that train of thought. So, eggplants and—oh, and plums. And… beets, I think? They might be red, actually.”

In the corner of his sketchbook, Miles tries to sketch a little beet, but then he realizes that he isn’t actually all that sure of what beets look like and gives up.

“I’ll google it later,” he promises Noir, “Purple’s a really, um, pretty colour.”

“They’re all wonderful,” Noir says, smiling a bit at Miles.

“Yeah,” Miles chews on the inside of his cheek, tilting his head at his sketchbook a bit, “I guess so.”

Noir points at the lettering that Miles was experimenting with earlier, “Why isn’t this purple?” he asks.

Miles squints at the spot, and then, sighing, “Have we talked about colour theory yet?”

“No,” Noir blinks, “It sounds fascinating.”

“Okay, so colour theory is super complicated and I honestly don’t really understand everything myself but there’s this one youtube video that was really cool and—“

* * *

“What did you say that your profession was again?” Miles asks, ducking under the robot’s kick, wincing when it follows up by snapping its leg back into his shoulders.

“Retired,” May answers mysteriously, “Watch your stance, keep it fluid.”

Miles yelps as the robot sends him flying into a wall, briefly going invisible before becoming visible again, “Did Peter ever take self defence lessons? Or did he learn from the robot, too?”

“He learned on the job,” May sips her tea, “But I’d rather you be more prepared.”

Miles winces at the reminder and flips up. The robot grabs him by the ankle and smashes him into the floor.

“Ow,” Miles groans.

“Don’t surrender stability unless it’s necessary,” May taps a few notes into the laptop, “How are your lessons with Gwen?”

“Kind of hard when she’s not there in person?” Miles punches the robot in the face and then pulls his hand back, wincing as he shakes his knuckles, “ _Ow_. She’s not a bad teacher, it’s just that she can’t make physical adjustments, you know? I can’t spar with her or anything.”

“That’s why we have the robot,” May agrees, “Are you comfortable enough to incorporate it into your fighting style yet?”

“Um…” Miles sweeps his feet at the robot’s legs. The robot jumps back and Miles groans, “Not yet.”

“Hm.”

Miles goes for another punch. The robot decides to judo flip Miles.

“Ow.”

“Are you stretching enough? Flexibility is important, you know.”

Miles stands up and tries to remember how to take a proper fighting stance, “I know, Aunt May,” he agrees wearily, and bounces a bit on his feet, “What level am I on again?”

“Level one,” May finishes off her tea.

“May!” Miles picks the robot up and throws it into a wall.

“Fine,” May’s lips twitch, “Level three.”

“How many levels are there?”

May squints at her empty cup, and then at the kettle of tea across the room, as though internally debating just how much she wants another cup of tea. “You should focus on the now, Miles. Don’t be distracted by what you aren’t, just focus on getting better.”

The robot rises and starts to stalk towards Miles. “There aren’t, like, one hundred, are there?”

May decides to go refill her tea.

The robot attacks, Miles defends, he never really gets to hear her answer, and it haunts him for _days_.

* * *

Miles shifts, hands in his pockets, eyes on his sneakers, silent, holding his breath as he consciously doesn’t lean against the wall.

And then, finally, Peter says, voice soft, crackling like a winter fire, “It looks great, kid.”

“You think so?” Miles smiles a bit, pulls at the drawstrings of his hoodie, “I know that everyone’s doing one for him. And I’ve already done one, for Uncle Aaron. But I wanted to make a mural for Spider-man, all the same. And you’re—I guess, you’re the closest to this one.”

“You should be proud of yourself,” Peter says, and then, tilting his head, “Hey—over there, in that alley, can you take me to see that alley behind you?”

Miles blinks a bit, “Over there? In the alley?”

“Yeah,” Peter squints, “Just—I think I saw something.”

Miles raises an eyebrow, but shrugs, and, picking up the device, moves over to the alley. “I thought that you said that you weren’t into this kind of stuff?” he asks, amused as he walks into the alley full of graffiti.

“No, nah,” Peter shakes his head, and jerks his chin at the alley wall, “But it’s you.”

“It’s not mine,” Miles says.

“Not yours,” Peter points, “But _you_.”

Miles turns.

On the wall, stark black and red and white, Spider-man. _Miles_ ’ Spider-man, not the original.

“Oh,” Miles says, break caught, stunned.

“Look at that, kid,” Peter grins, “Already got fan art.”

“Wow,” Miles says, quietly, awed. And then, stepping back, fingers itching to swing, he asks, “Do you mind if I—“

“Nah,” Peter glances at Miles’ wrists, where his web shooters are covered by the sleeves of his hoodie, and then, says, “You’re Spider-man, after all. Go do your thing.”

Miles grins and pulls on his mask, “Yeah, okay.”

And he goes.


	2. Runner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m fine, aren’t I?” Miles presses his hand against his side, just below his ribcage, and winces a bit, “It healed alright.”
> 
> “What if it got infected?” Peter persists, scowling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Me, desperately trying to make sure the chapter that I wrote at 2am makes sense*: Gosh golly I don't know what to do.  
> *Me, too tired at 2:40am*: Forget it, let's just post it.  
> So if it makes no sense to you... yeah, I don't really know how I was planning to complete that train of thought. Don't be me. Sleep on time.  
>  **Spoilers for Brave New World** To avoid, stop reading at "obligatory wounded noises" and start again at "What if _you_ go crazy".

Here’s the thing: Miles is good at running. He’s a runner, always has been, thought that he always would be. So, Miles is a runner, and he’s good at it.

This wouldn’t have been an issue if he hadn’t followed Uncle Aaron into the subway to spray out _great expectations_ in red and blue on a blank canvas, wouldn’t be an issue if he hadn’t decided to pull on the mask, if he had been someone else, someone who questioned good or bad and didn’t know that good was something you just had to do, no two ways about it.

So, Miles is a runner, but Spider-man? Sure, he runs. But he doesn’t run _away_. No, that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

Some days, when Mile jumps in, eyes closed, head first, to save someone, he thinks this is what got Peter Parker killed.

And he wishes he could be the kind to second guess this. The kind to take a step back and wonder _am I sure_?

But he’s sure. He’s been sure his entire life. He was made for this, he knows. He’s got to do this, because he can, you see, and if you have the ability to do good, you’ve got to do it.

It’s hard to remember that he’s got to fight, though, when nobody else is in danger. When it’s just him. Then he thinks about running. About running and saving someone else, because _he’ll_ be fine, won’t he? He’s Spider-man.

He jumps in front of a knife for a boy he doesn’t know and finishes the fight. Doesn’t even feel that much pain until he’s biting down whimpers in his bedroom, stitching up his side. Thinks about going to the hospital. Knows that it’s his mom’s shift and he can’t let her know.

The wound is healed within two days and Miles forgets about it.

Or, rather, he _would_ , if Peter would stop mother hen-ing him about it.

“I’m _fine_ ,” Miles grumbles, shoving his textbooks into his backpack as Peter crosses his arms over his chest. “You act like it was a huge deal or something.”

“It _is_ a huge deal,” Peter insists, “You should have gone to a hospital.”

“I’m fine, aren’t I?” Miles presses his hand against his side, just below his ribcage, and winces a bit, “It healed alright.”

“What if it got infected?” Peter persists, scowling.

Miles rolls his eyes, “ _Yeesh_ , bug off, man, I’ve already got a dad, and I don’t need another.”

Peter shuts up at that, lips pursing together, but he still looks irate, shooting Miles those Looks whenever they have a conversation, which considering he talks to Peter every day at least once, isn’t the best thing.

What’s worse?

He recruits Gwen.

“Look, Miles,” Gwen says, tapping out a beat on her drums before scowling and making adjustments in her notebook. “I know that a lot of people in our lives are very self-destructive and stupid—myself included—“ she grumbles when Miles crosses his arms over her chest and shoots her a look, “—fine, fine, _yeesh_. But doesn’t every superhero need a person at home, to be there for them when they need help?”

“I can’t tell my dad!” Miles throws his hands up in the air, “He’d _freak_! He already _hates_ Spider-man, can you imagine how bad it would be if he found out that his _son_ was Spider-man? He’d be so worried! He’d _double_ freak, and then he’d be super concerned and—“ he shakes his head, “I’m _fine_.”

“It doesn’t have to be your dad,” Gwen says, twirling a drumstick in one hand, “What about your mom? She’s a nurse, right? That’s like a bonus!”

“No, no, no,” Miles starts pacing.

“Don’t start pacing,” Gwen groans.

And, like, Miles _wants_ to stop, man, he seriously does, but, it’s, like, he’s got to _move_ , y’know, because his _brain_ is moving and his body needs to be moving and _god_ he’s not making sense anymore and he feels trapped and he can’t—

“ _Miles_!” Gwen slams a drumstick on a cymbal.

Miles stops pacing. Runs his fingers through his hair a couple of times. Resists the urge to throw on the mask and chuck himself out the window.

“Not my mom, either,” he says, fiddling with the strings of his hoodie.

Gwen sounds out a few more ideas with him. Nothing is worked out by the time that his lunch break ends.

“We’ll talk later,” Miles says, meaning it as an excuse.

“Fine,” Gwen grounds out, half threat, half promise.

“Your dad, I get,” Peter says, reluctantly, cross legged on the kitchen countertop while Miles is home for the weekend, his mom and dad out to get groceries and maybe go on a date, too. “But why _not_ your mom? Is it because you’re worried that she’ll tell your dad?”

“No, it’s not,” Miles plays with his fingers, “She—my dad, you know, he’s a cop. And it—it _would_ be okay, you know, it’s just, we’re in _New York_. We’re in—we’re in _Brooklyn_. Our neighbourhood—our people are good, yeah, but not on the best terms with cops but my dad’s not good enough for the goodie-goodies even though he’s a good cop and then you add in the crazies and super villains with those powers that dad’s gotta deal with and—I don’t want to add to that, you know? My mom has enough to worry about, enough to think about at night, without me adding,” he gestures at himself, “You know?”

“That’s stupid,” Gwen says, flickering to life next to Peter, her back pressed against something out of sight, voice a whisper, a shampoo bottle over her shoulder.

Miles squints, “Are you—“

“My band got hired to play at a party,” Gwen jerks her chin, “Taking a break, hiding in the bathroom.”

“Cool,” Miles says awkwardly.

“Same,” Peter sighs.

“Back to Miles and his stupid decisions,” Gwen raises an eyebrow, “You’ve got people that love you, Miles. It’s a bit too late to just give that up now.”

“And I’m totally okay with that,” Miles spreads out his hands, “I’d just rather, uh, you know, not have the people I love be worried about me.”

“But—“

“You can’t judge me on that,” he cuts Gwen off, sharp, and she falls silent. Nobody says anything for a while, and Miles stares at his sneakers before whispering, “Sorry, that was mean.”

“No,” Gwen curls into herself, “You’re not wrong.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m right.”

A quiet laugh, “Kind of does.”

“You’re doing better, kiddo,” Peter says, moving his shoulder to nudge Gwen’s. It passes through, of course, but the sentiment is there. “Both of you.”

Gwen shrugs, offering a small smile, “I made a friend.”

“WHAT.”

“We’ll talk later,” Gwen laughs, a little, self-conscious thing as she tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear, “We’re talking about Miles having someone know about his identity because he’s getting injured?”

“Right, Miles,” Peter sighs.

“Miles,” Gwen agrees, grin turning more crooked, mischievous.

“Not Miles,” Miles says, uselessly, because fate conspires against him.

“Look, kid,” Peter swipes a thumb across his forehead, “It’s—loving someone, being loved—it’s not, like, something we do just to be happy, you know? I mean, sure, it makes you happy, but it’s also—it’s also something you need, kind of. I get that you want your mom to worry less, that you want her to be at peace. But love is a two way street. You want her to worry less, but she wouldn’t want you getting hurt and having to take care of it by yourself.”

“I know first aid,” Miles protests.

“You learned from a _library book_ ,” Peter raises an eyebrow, “That doesn’t count. Anyways, kid, the point is—this feeling you have, right now? Where you think about your mom, and you want her to be happy, but even if she’s not, you want to be there for her? Even if you can’t love away the bad, just so she knows that you love her? That’s how your mom feels. Except—except even more. Because you’re her _kid_. And this is important.”

“But if she doesn’t _know_ —“

“Miles,” Gwen cuts him off, voice soft. “I know about people keeping secrets out of love. That’s what got my Peter killed. And even if—even if I couldn’t have saved him—maybe—maybe it would have been nicer to know, than for him to die without me even knowing anything until after his funeral.”

“What if she blames herself?” Miles asks, folding into a chair, “What if it drives her insane, like in those books where nobody gets a happy ending?”

“Dude, she’s not going to go insane.”

“You can’t know that,” Miles holds up a hand, “I mean, you’ve got Osborn, Doc Ock, Fisk—“

“Fisk was already kind of nuts, though.”

Miles shakes his hand, “He’ll count as half.”

“Fine, half.”

“I mean, all the super villains are people who went nuts.”

“They were already pretty nuts in the first place,” Peter remarks, “I mean, Osborn experimented on himself, Doc Ock is—yeah, Fisk consciously built a criminal empire—“

“And if they did go insane, it was mostly because of genetic engineering, not because they held some great knowledge.” Gwen arches an eyebrow, “This is why I’m not a chemistry major.”

“ _I’m_ a chemistry major,” Peter says, insulted.

“Point,” Gwen sing-songs, laughing when Peter makes the obligatory wounded noises.

“I’m not talking about super villains in real life, I’m talking confusing and overly-metaphorical literature that have situations where people get their worldview flipped and commit suicide! I mean, we’ve read Brave New World, the dude dies at the end!”

“Whoa, _spoilers_ ,” Gwen grins unrepentantly when Miles shoots her a Look, “Fine, joking. Good book, bad argument. The situations are _totally_ different.”

“Was that the book from high school about the brainwashing babies dystopia?” Peter scrunches up his nose, “Because, again, chemistry major.”

Miles squints at Peter, and then decides that, “Maybe it’s not as well written in your world.”

“We’re getting off topic,” Peter says, seeming to try and derail any possible conversation about his lack of literary investment before it begins. “What if _you_ go crazy because you can’t confide in anyone?”

“No problem-o,” Miles finger guns, “I’ve got you guys.”

“That was the most disastrous thing I’ve seen you do up to date,” Gwen drags a hand over her face.

Peter is quiet, chewing on the inside of his cheek, and sighs, like he knows they’re not going anywhere.

They leave it there, talking about other, not-talking-to-his-mom things, and then Peter says, quietly, a few weeks later, “It’s not for your mom’s sake, kid.”

Miles sits on a nearby rooftop, mask still pulled over his chin, quiet as Peter talks.

“It’s for us, too. It doesn’t—it doesn’t have to be your mom. Or your dad. It can just be May. Just—just go to someone, okay?”

Miles stares at his hands, and then, in a small voice, “The last time that May saw blood and a Spider-man suit, it was because her nephew was dead. I don’t want to—I don’t want to remind her of that. And I can—I can handle it, you know? I don’t want to mess anything up.”

“You will,” Peter says, quietly, “You’ll always mess things up. And it’ll suck. But it’ll be okay, because you’ll have people there for you when the dust clears.”

“What if my people are gone, because of my mistake?”

“Then,” Peter sucks in a breath, buries his face in his knees, “Then, I guess, you find new people. You can’t stitch yourself up in your bedroom forever, kiddo.”

“Why—why did you guys want for it to be my family so bad?”

“I don’t know,” Peter shrugs, “I guess because you’re stuck with family. No matter what happens, they’ll always be there for you. They’ll always be on your side, no matter what.”

“You guys are kinda like my family, too, you know,” Miles grins a bit and lifts his mask to his nose so that Peter can see, “At least, I’m your family. Even if, I guess, you guys don’t really want to be mine.”

Peter is quiet for a second, eyes wide, and then, he laughs, “Thanks, kiddo. Yeah, sure, I can be your family. We’ll be a weird Spider-family with a pig and a robot and we’ll all be connected by genetic mutation.”

Miles snickers, and Peter smiles back, kind of soft, fond.

So Miles doesn’t tell his mom, or his dad. But he’s got his Spider-family, which he supposes Aunt May _has_ to be an honorary member of, even if she’s not a Spider-person herself.

He gets some shrapnel in his arm and goes to May to get fixed up.

Miles is a runner. He still wants to run away, honestly. Away instead of toward.

But it’s alright, now, because when he runs away from the bad, he’s got something good to run to. When he runs away, he’s got people waiting for him, ready to fix him up and let him stop running a bit.

So Spider-man runs to the bad, to save people. Spider-man gets hurt sometimes.

But Spider-man’s also got a family he can run to, same that Miles does. Spider-man’s got May and his hologram family, and Miles has his mom and dad.

He’s both, two amazing families to run to, and that’s not bad. Not bad at all, for a runner like him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hullo, hope you're doing lovely and wonderful and taking good care of yourselves. If you need a reason to smile today: look at the sky!!! It's so exciting!!! It's got, like, what, four layers in the atmosphere??? And maybe it has WATER FLOATING IN THE SKY or maybe it doesn't and it's just a super cool, beautiful blue or maybe it has the SUN which is sooo far but is still warm and maybe it's pink b/c it's the sunset or idk??? It's just??? So nice??? So if you need a reason to smile, let it be the sky. (Or this chapter, that would also be nice if this chapter made you smile a wee bit. But, like, also THE SKY.)


	3. Nightmares (aka Loose Ends)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An interesting thing about this fic is that it feels like with every chapter I open a can of worms and then just kinda leave it there? Like "this is a problem". "What do we do about it?" "idk" and I just leave it, unresolved??? I will resolve it all... eventually...

“Don’t worry,” Jefferson says as he moves to sit down on the lower steps of the fire escape, “I’m not here as a cop.” His voice is light, teasing as Miles rolls his eyes.

“You’re always a cop, dad,” Miles says even as he sprays out his art, neat and messy and bright. “Weren’t you the one who said that it wasn’t just cops who should enforce the law, it just so happened that cops did it for a living?”

It’s a little game they’ve fallen into since making Aaron’s mural together, Jefferson teasing that he won’t turn Miles in for his art, Miles asking Jefferson if he can risk his job like that with a crooked grin.

They go back and forth for a while, falling into new habits (but maybe, Jefferson hopes, they’ll be old someday, the easiness between the two of them that they’re slowly trying to create) before Jefferson decides to take a bit of a risk.

“These, uh, the stuff that you’re putting up, that you’ve been putting up lately—“

Miles freezes a bit, movements jerky as he bends down to hover his fingers over his cans of spray paint, like he’s trying to hide his nervousness behind movement.

There’s no easy way to say this. “It’s Aaron’s apartment, right?”

Alright. He’s said it. It’s out in the open.

Miles shoves his hand in his pocket, where Jefferson can see the crinkled edges of a piece of paper, probably a photo, Miles’ reference though he usually uses his sketchbook. Even if Jefferson hadn’t identified his brother’s apartment on the city walls, he knows that Miles is pulling from something real, something that existed outside of Miles’ head.

Miles’ back is ramrod, shoulders tense, fingers twitching in his pocket, and then the fight goes out of him like the air from a popped balloon as he says, quietly, “I wanted it to be more than a memory.”

Jefferson looks at the wall, the half finished lines, something that may be a punching bag or may be a plant (he honestly doesn’t know until Miles finishes) and says quietly, “And this makes it more.”

He gets it. He does. He remembers being young and reckless, remembers how he liked making his mark on the world in spray cans but also how he put himself on the walls, too.

How it was art, in a way, how he sorted out what was in his head and then put it out in the world, a declaration that he knew who he was and what he was going to do.

Miles shrugs, glances at the wall, and mumbles, “Yeah.”

He doesn’t expect Jefferson to understand, he knows. Miles is a good kid, but he’ll never be a cop. He’s too—too sure of himself. Of what he has to do. And where cops are by the book, Miles goes and does what he thinks he has to.

He can’t sit around and wait for orders, he’s got to do what he’s got to do. There’s something in his veins, something that Jefferson had thought was like Aaron. It’s not, though. Jefferson doesn’t fully understand it, but, he thinks, it’s something good.

Miles is looking at him, now, like he isn’t sure what Jefferson is going to say, and to be honest, he doesn’t know himself too well either. So he doesn’t say much, just says, quietly, “Alright,” and nods. Dips his head once. That’s all.

Miles looks kind of surprised. Then he returns the nod. Jerky. Smooth. Both. (Miles is strange like that. He’s like a weird mix of Jefferson and Rio when he moves, like he’s learned two different ways to move and decided to use them both.)

Then, slowly, Miles bends over, picks up a can, and returns to spraying paint on the walls of the alley.

Jefferson, for his part, sits on the steps of the fire escape, and watches his son.

( _He never lets anyone watch him do it_ , one of Miles’ friends in the neighbourhood says, rolling his eyes as they sit in the living room and scroll through photos of Miles’ art on his phone. _Says it’s personal._

Jefferson, overhearing from the kitchen, hides a smile behind a mug of coffee.)

* * *

It’s somewhere past midnight and the lights in Miles’ room are still on, pale yellow bleeding out beneath the door’s crack, the house still and quiet.

It’s Friday night so he doesn’t have to worry about school, but still, he ought to sleep early, so Rio goes to his room, raps two knuckles on the door and waits for the quiet _come in_.

Instead, it’s a small, “Mom?”

It’s not the right voice. It isn’t the tired, grouchy voice of a kid who wants to finish his homework before Saturday comes nor the annoyed but light voice of a kid who lost track of time goofing off. And maybe it’s just her being paranoid because she’s tired, but it doesn’t sit all that right with Rio.

“It’s late, _mijo_ ,” she says, leaning against the doorframe, waiting to see if Miles will open the door.

He does, scrubbing at his face like it’ll hide anything and burying his face in her chest. “Mind staying the night?” he asks, voice cracking a bit.

She presses a hand against the back of his head and tries not to think about how this hasn’t happened since he was too short to reach her shoulders. “‘Course not,” Rio buries a kiss on his hairline, “Had a bad night?”

“Just a bad dream,” Miles says, like his voice has been scraped raw.

“Want to talk about it?” Rio asks, and he shakes his head against the fold of her shoulder.

So she stays, sitting on the edge of his bed and smoothing her fingers through his hair and tells him a few stories of her youth, when she was reckless and ridiculous.

He presses his face into the side of her legs and leans into her touch and he feels so young, so ridiculously young, and suddenly she feels a bit scared of what will happen when she’s not here to comfort him.

She buries the thought away and kisses his cheek when he’s sound asleep, turns off his bedside light and squeezes into the space between her kid and the wall so that she’ll be there when he wakes.

It’s somewhere past midnight and Rio is lucky enough to have a kid who holds her when he’s scared. She’s lucky enough to be trusted to stay and keep away the nightmares. And someday, Miles will grow up and she won’t have this anymore.

But when she wakes in the morning, Miles is still asleep, still by her side, and for now, it’s alright.

(And when he grows up, when he’s fine on his own—Rio knows that she’ll be happy for him. But that’s a thought for another time. For now, she will focus on convincing herself to get up because _wow_ she is comfortable and does not want to get out of bed, the mattress is so _soft_.)

* * *

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” Peter’s voice is soft, crackly through the communicator. He’s wrapped in a soft grey robe, sitting down with a pillow against his chest.

“It’s not that late,” Miles says, still fully dressed, sketching out sharp lines in the margins of his math notes.

Peter turns slightly to peer at Miles’ clock. It’s past midnight, numbers faint green lines on his bedside table. “Your clock begs to differ.”

Miles shrugs, scowling a bit. He puts a bit more force than necessary into the lines that he sketches, and Peter holds back a sigh.

“Come on, kid,” Peter says, head tilted to the side, “Aren’t you tired?”

“I’m fine,” Miles mumbles, head bowed, grip tight on his pencil.

Peter reaches out a hand, and it passes through but Miles can see it all the same, pale blue against the shadowed sketches on his lap. “I know fine and this isn’t it.”

Miles shakes his head, crumples up his math notes and throws them across the room. “I’m just tired.”

“Then you should sleep.”

“I—“ Miles stares at the crumpled paper. His expression deflates and he stands up. Moves across the room. Smooths out his notes and kicks his walls. Swears a bit.

Peter watches and waits.

Miles puts away the math notes, neatly, in his backpack, cleans up his room so that it’s mostly organized, and then flops onto his bed. “It’s nothing,” he insists, in a voice that very much suggests that it is _something_.

“Mm-hm,” Peter says, in the voice of one who is too tired to deal with teenage drama.

Miles growls, “Can’t you just go away?”

Peter holds out his hands, examines himself, and then shrugs, “Nah.”

Miles buries his face in his pillow.

Peter waits.

Waits.

Waits and still Miles is silent.

In the end, an hour passes, and Peter decides that Miles probably fell asleep.

He turns the communicator off and waits until the next night to talk to the kid about it.

Peter raises the subject. Tells Miles to sleep. Miles evades.

Peter tells Gwen. Gwen confronts Miles. Miles evades.

It goes on for nights. Days. A week. Two weeks. Time goes on, and nothing.

Until, finally, Miles says in the darkened room, his roommate gone for the week to visit family, the only light being Peter’s holographic blue, “I have nightmares, okay?”

Peter sits, silent, and stares at Miles, who has his back to Peter.

“It’s stupid, right? I’m pretty sure Spider-man doesn’t have nightmares. There’s literally no reason for me to just randomly start having nightmares. And it doesn’t interfere with anything, honestly. It’s fine. I’m not some kid who—“

“I get them, too,” Peter cuts in softly, “We all do. It’s just—“ a self-deprecating laugh, “perks of being a superhero, I guess.”

Miles stills, shoulders sharp, on edge, like he’s expecting it to be some sort of trap. And then he says, “Then it doesn’t—it doesn’t stop? You just keep going?”

“No,” Peter rubs his knuckles with his thumb, “Of course not. We find people. We go to therapy. We—you can’t just accept them. You’ve gotta be willing to get help, kid. Talk to someone about them. Write a diary. Whatever. You can’t just accept the bad or run from it forever.”

“…I’m always running,” Miles says, voice small, “Sometimes it’s from Fisk or sometimes it’s from another bad guy or sometimes I don’t even know but I know that—that once I stop, something bad will happen. Sometimes I just keep running until I wake up but sometimes I get too tired and I can’t run anymore and—“ he curls up a bit, “I’m sick of running.”

“Kid…” Peter bites his lower lip, “I…”

“Okay, thanks,” Miles says, abruptly, tone short, “That was kind of helpful. Goodnight.” And he doesn’t talk any more.

And Peter—Peter can’t touch him. Can’t talk to anyone in Miles’ dimension except Miles himself. All Peter gets to do is talk, and Miles is the one who chooses to listen or not.

What is he supposed to say?

“Sometimes,” he hears himself say, dimly, “I dream that there’s a fight. And I’m just—watching. All washed up, I guess. I can’t do anything to help. And that scares me a lot, kiddo.”

 _Honesty?_ Why on Earth is Peter choosing to be  _vulnerable_? This was a terrible decision.

“What do you do?” Miles asks the wall. Thankfully, it seems that Peter has not 100% screwed it all up.

“I wake up,” Peter shrugs, “Do a couple of push ups or whatever. Remember that I can still fight. That I can train myself, work harder—I can’t control my dreams. But I can control what I do when I’m awake. And—I guess—“ he tries to remember what the healthy thing to do is, “Find someone you trust. Someone you love and who loves you. Stay with them a bit, maybe.”

Miles closes his eyes, “I’ve stayed up with my mom sometimes after a nightmare.”

“Yeah, that’s,” surprise in Peter’s voice, “That’s great, kid. I’m really proud of you.”

There's a grin in his voice as Miles says proudly, “Thanks.”

Then he falls silent.

Peter waits a bit, just in case Miles hasn't totally fallen asleep yet. Reads a book. Watches Miles. And when he's sure that Miles is asleep, he scratches the back of his head and sighs, "And I'm here, too, kid. If you ever need someone."

The device switches off, and Peter doesn't catch Miles' small smile before he falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is your friendly reminder that you don't have to be afraid to depend on people and it's alright to go to others for comfort and support even if it feels like your problem is petty, because it might just be that things are building up and you've got too much on your chest. Don't let things boil up and over. Take care of yourself. You'll be alright, in the end.


	4. Absence and Presence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jefferson laughs and admits, “Once, when I was washing dishes, I shoved my sleeves up to my elbows, and just as I was rinsing the dishes they fell down and my sleeves got soaked. My wife was furious.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a bit nervous about this chapter, mostly because this fic was meant to be Miles-based but it's a bit difficult to write a post-canon fic without also incorporating Peter B. and Gwen's character growth post-canon? (Also I didn't plan to include my headcannon about Peter B. having Depression but _apparently_ I can't write healthy brains.) So my question for you guys is: **would you rather I make this a series and write separate fics for Peter B. and Gwen or just add their bits in this fic?**

It’s not that Miles is worried. He’s not. It’s just—okay. Yeah. Fine. He’s worried.

Who wouldn’t be? Peter hasn’t contacted either him nor the others, apparently, for more than a week.

Sure, fine, maybe he’s overreacting.

But maybe he’s not.

“He’s still alive,” Gwen says, her hologram leaning against an invisible wall, blowing bubbles with her gum and smiling a bit to herself when she gets a good one, “But lately, whenever I’ve checked in on him, he’s been asleep.”

Miles gnaws on his fingers, “Always? Like, even in the daytime?”

“Yeah,” Gwen shrugs, “Maybe he’s just pretending to sleep, I don’t know. You should check in on him.”

Miles nods and fiddles with his fingers, “Yeah. Okay. Sure.”

Gwen grins at him, crooked and knowing, and teases, “Hopefully you don’t catch him in the shower like that time with—”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Miles buries his face in his hands, “We agreed _never_ to talk about the time that I saw Spider-ham in the shower _ever again_.”

Gwen cackles and Miles mourns the fact that not only did he have to see such a horrific sight, but that they had managed to drag the story out of him when they noticed that he was no longer initiating calls.

(And that had been _so embarrassing_.

Everyone had popped up, expressions unusually serious. Peni started, bouncing a bit on her seat, “Miles, is your device broken?”

“…No?” Miles raised an eyebrow, looking around, “What’s up, guys?”

“It’s nothing, just,” Peter coughs, “You know, kid, you’re never a bother. We love having you around.”

“…Yeah?” Miles shifts awkwardly, “Um…what’s this about?”

There’s around ten more minutes of beating around the bush before Gwen cuts to the chase.

And Miles, scarlet, looks away from Spider-ham as he mumbles, “Oh, well, about that—“

Noir had pat his shoulder sympathetically. He didn’t actually feel it, Noir’s image being a hologram and all, but it’s the thought that counts.

Gwen _still_ hasn’t stopped teasing him about it.)

“Okay, so,” Miles pokes his device, “I’ll just, uh, go check on him, then.”

“Yeah,” Gwen nods awkwardly, “I’ll, just, uh, wait in my dimension. I’ll check in tonight?”

“Yeah,” Miles mimics Gwen’s nod, “Sounds good.”

She nods.

He nods back.

(Miles has never been the best at ending phone calls. He’s never really—like, is it weird, to just immediately hang up after saying bye? Because what if they start to say something and you just hung up and it’s rude and—oh, Gwen’s logged off, she’s gone now, cool, so, like, three seconds wait and then—he’s getting off track. Yeah. Okay. So. Er. Moving on.)

Peter’s lying on his balcony like he’s asleep when Miles appears. Miles peers around curiously. There are those two plants that Peter got a while back, but they look a bit dry. The balcony door’s open a crack, like Peter tried to close it but did so half-heartedly.

“Hey, man,” Miles says awkwardly.

Peter opens his eyes, scrubs his face, and sighs, “Oh, hey, kid. What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Miles shifts, “It’s just—you haven’t been talking to us lately, and whenever someone comes, you’ve been asleep.”

“Oh, yeah, that,” Peter rubs his web shooters, “Don’t worry about it. Give me a few days and I’ll be back to normal.”

“Back to normal?” Miles cocks his head to the side.

“Yeah, it’s just,” Peter runs his fingers through his hair. Offers Miles a wan smile, “Don’t worry about it, kid. Tell the others that it’s no big deal.”

“But what’s wrong?” Miles asks, “Maybe we can help.”

Peter gets a sort of distant look, and then he laughs, “Nothing’s wrong, kid. Seriously, it’s no big deal. Just give me a few days, this happens sometimes.”

“ _What_ happens sometimes?” Miles chews on the inside of his cheek, “Is something wrong with the device or—“

“I’m just a little sick,” Peter cuts Miles off, smiling a bit crookedly. “I’ll be better soon, though.”

“Oh,” Miles falls silent, and then, frowning, “If you’re sick, you shouldn’t be out in the cold. It’s not good for you.”

“No,” Peter looks out, closing his eyes as a small breeze ruffles his clothes, “This is good for me.”

“No, that’s not how sickness works. Literally, your body does better if—“

“Miles,” Peter cuts him off, voice soft, “It’s good for me.”

Miles tries to wrap his head around it, and finds that he can’t. “Scientifically speaking—“

“It’s not that kind of sick,” Peter shrugs, his jacket shifting on his shoulders, and it clicks, finally. Peter seems to see it, from the way he smiles, and he stands up, moving towards Miles, “Hey, you want me to read you that book? The one you don’t have in your universe?”

“Oh,” Miles blinks, “Yeah, okay.”

Peter nods and bends down to pick up the device, “Don’t tell the others, okay? I’d rather they don’t get worried.”

“Should we be worried?” Miles asks.

“Nah,” Peter grins, crooked and tired like he’s a half-finished sketch. “Don’t waste your time worrying about me, kiddo. I’ve got good people on my side, taking care of me, yeah? And you can check in whenever. I just need—some time, ’s all.”

“Okay,” Miles says, and sits down cross legged on the floor as Peter shuffles to his kitchen counter and looks through his pile of junk, looking for his book. “Do you, um, have any medicine?”

Peter’s hands still for a moment, fingers faltering, before he picks up his pace again and says quietly, voice coarse as he laughs a bit, “I did, before. But after the bite, my metabolism—“ he waves a hand, “It was alright at first, I think my healing factor did something, maybe. But time went on, and,” he shrugs, wincing, “Even enhanced healing has its limits.”

Miles stares at his hands and tries to think of something smart or nice to say. Instead, his mouth decides to blurt out, “I’ll google it once I get home.”

Peter turns around, book in hand, raised eyebrows, and the corners of his mouth tug up as he says, “Look forward to it, kid.”

A week later, Peter pops up, pale blue, eating from a bowl of rice as he says guiltily, “So, I got an instant pot.”

Miles, who’s in the middle of math, rubs the heel of his hand against his face and says, “I thought Gwen said that you couldn’t get it until you went to therapy?”

“Yeah, so,” Peter winces, “I need your help?”

“Just make an appointment,” Miles says.

“Right. Yeah. But, the thing _is_ , a while back, MJ made me promise that if I got therapy I’d go to a therapist that she knew, so I talked to MJ about it and she’s made an appointment except the therapist she knows is in _France_ and—“

Miles isn’t exactly worried anymore.

(Does he want to do more? Be more? Sure. But for now—for now, it is what it is. And he’s learning to work with that. So it’s—not perfect. But it’s okay.)

* * *

“For the record,” is the first thing out of Jake’s mouth when he catches sight of Jefferson, hands wildly waving in the air, looking distinctly panicked, “This was Amy’s idea.”

Amy, sitting in the desk across from Jake, shoots him an unimpressed stare and says flatly, “Try again.”

Jefferson raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms over his chest as he jerks his chin at the kid sitting on the ceiling and holding a milkshake, “The Captain called him in as a witness for the Fisk case, guys,” he says, head cocked to the side, “So unless you’re talking about something other than Spider-man’s presence—“

“No,” Jake shakes his head, wide eyed, “Of course not.”

How such a great cop could be such a terrible liar, Jefferson will never know.

The milkshake lands perfectly on Jake’s desk, a web steadying it, then there’s a near-silent _thud_ as Spider-man lands on the ground, wiry and lean and—really tiny, to be honest. Jefferson is still not over how _small_ Spider-man is.

“Hey, officer,” Spider-man laughs nervously, offering Jefferson a two fingered salute, “What’s shaking?”

“Good morning, Spider-man,” Jefferson raises his eyebrows and bites back a smile, “You didn’t let those two get you in any trouble, did you?”

“Of course not,” Spider-man says, almost petulantly, that way that Miles does right before he says something like _have a little more faith in me, dad_. “I’m Spider-man, I’ve got to be a good role model.”

Behind him, Jefferson sees Jake snigger and throw an eraser at Amy’s head. Amy hits it with a ruler and it smashes into Jake’s nose.

Jefferson looks back at Spider-man, who giggles nervously and straightens. He sighs, “Let’s go talk about the case and leave these two alone.”

“Sorry, sir,” Amy says.

Jake smiles unapologetically. Amy elbows him. Jefferson walks away before he gets sucked into something ridiculous.

When they reach the Captain’s room, Spider-man takes a position on the wall, clearly nervous. Jefferson stands by the door, half leaning against the frame. A lawyer sits beside the Captain and asks for permission to record everything. Spider-man gives permission, voice subdued.

The Captain is quiet for a moment, and then, “Hello, Spider-man.”

“Hey,” Spider-man sets down his milkshake and unsticks from the wall. Bits of plaster come with his fingers and Jefferson tries not to think of how inexperienced he is, how little time he has had, being Spider-man. “So, um, I just need to answer a few questions about Fisk, right?”

“Yes,” the Captain nods at Jefferson, “I was told that you worked well with Jefferson so I thought you might be a bit more comfortable with him in the room.”

Spider-man bobs his head in an awkward sort of half-nod. “Yeah, thanks,” he traces the side of his mask with his hand, as though tucking a stray piece of hair behind his ear, and then immediately shifts, seeming embarrassed. “So, uh, fire away, I guess.”

The Captain nods, “Could you start by telling us about how you first found out about Fisk’s plans?”

“I accidentally stumbled in on a fight between Spiderman—the original Spiderman, I mean—and, I think it was the Green Goblin?” Spider-man winces a bit, “I can’t remember if it was Green Goblin or the Lizard, sorry. But it was one of them. I tried to leave but ended up getting caught up in the fight and—“

His voice is remarkably steady as he speaks, hands open on his lap like he can’t quite figure out what to do with them, head bowed, and shoulders tense.

“He gave me the drive and told me to run,” Spider-man says, “but then Fisk came in, so I had to hide. Parker—“ he refuses to say Peter, “Parker was stuck. He couldn’t move.”

And Jefferson _knows_. The kid doesn’t have to say it. Doesn’t have to spell it out.

(He does, anyway.)

When he’s done, he sits back and asks, wearily, “Questions?”

“That’s enough for today,” the Captain says, rubbing his temples, “If we need any follow up, we’ll contact you another day.”

Spider-man nods and stands.

Jefferson glances at Spider-Man and something in his chest goes tight. Maybe that’s what compels him to say, “It’s noon already. If you’d like, I can take you out to lunch?” Spider-man stiffens a bit, so Jefferson adds, “Nowhere fancy, just a place with good fries and a slushy.”

“Yeah,” Spider-man nods, a bit stiffly, then nods again, a bit more firmly this time, “Sounds good.”

So they go. There are little things that Spider-man does—he makes pictures with his fries, and when he rolls up his mask, he folds it back, like a kindergardener folds a shirt sleeve, rather than just shoving it up his nose.

“I tried to just shove it up once,” he admits, rubbing the back of his neck, “And just as I was about to eat my burger, it fell back down again.”

Jefferson laughs and admits, “Once, when I was washing dishes, I shoved my sleeves up to my elbows, and just as I was rinsing the dishes they fell down and my sleeves got soaked. My wife was furious.”

Spider-man snickers, hiding his grin behind his burger, and he’s so young, and suddenly, all that Jefferson can think is _what if this were Miles? How would I feel?_ And he’s aware, hyperaware, that Spider-man’s got family somewhere.

People who care.

People who may or may not know, and Jefferson doesn’t know whether or not they do, but either way, this Spider-man could end up like the last no matter how hard Jefferson tries to make it so that it isn’t the case.

They talk about food and comics and random things for a while before the question is just _there_ , on the tip of his tongue, and…

“Why are you doing this?” he asks before he can stop himself.

Spider-man recoils a bit, startled, and then, shrugging, “I’ve got these powers, may as well use them.”

“That’s—that’s it?” Jefferson raises an eyebrow, “You could do other things. You can teleport or turn invisible, right? You could do a lot of crime with that.”

“Crime’s bad,” Spider-man says, strangely childish in tone. Or maybe not-so-strangely. He sounds almost offended.

“Then why be Spider-man?” Jefferson presses, “It’s dangerous. You could just sit at home and do nothing.”

Spider-man leans back. Sips his slushy. Eats a french fry. And then he asks, “Why did you become a cop?”

Jefferson’s mouth dries. _To make amends_ , he thinks. _To show that I changed._ “To do something good,” he says, quietly.

“Why? You don’t need to.”

Jefferson can’t find a reason. Just a feeling, in his chest, the voice in his head saying _this is the right thing to do_.

Spider-man grins a bit, “Yeah. That’s how it feels,” he says, and Jefferson gets it.

( _He’s just a kid_ , one part of him thinks.

 _He’s Spider-man_ , he knows. _He’ll find some way to save people, no matter what stands in his way_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your casual reminder that life was made for loving. Living is a gift, not a video game. Your goal isn't to be more productive or gain more skills, though that stuff is awesome, too. Your goal is just to enjoy life and living. Sure, it's great to learn a new language or instrument. But it's also great to enjoy a walk down the street. It's fine to be happy because you get to drink a milkshake. Don't be guilty if you take life slow. That just means that you're savouring it, and if you savour it, that means it's something worth savouring, right?


	5. Museums and Hospitals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noir loves Museums.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go drink some water. Once you've drank a glass of water, _then_ you can read this chapter. Go. Get hydrated.

The first thing that Noir says when he appears in front of Miles is, “Do you have rainbow knives???”

Miles, who is in the middle of reviewing for his exams and doesn’t have a functioning brain, says, “Dude, I don’t have _any_ knives.”

Which, of course, makes Noir think that Miles’ dimension has no knives which is _not true_ but Miles is currently not processing, like, anything.

Approximately ten minutes into Noir demanding how they _live_ without knives, Miles says, “Wait, no, we have knives,” because he’s just that dumb and has taken _this long_ to fully process everything.

It takes another ten minutes to explain to Noir his reasoning and that he’s _tired, okay,_ he can’t fully function right now.

“I have, like, four exams coming up,” Miles says, shoving his face in his textbook, “And I am ready for none of them. I think that I failed my Chem test. I can’t remember anything from Comp Sci because I never learned any of the theory, just the application. I’m going to fail everything and get expelled.”

Noir alternates between saying stuff like “you said that you didn’t have knives, though!!!” (because he’s still stuck on that) and stuff like “emotions are terrible. We should get rid of them by shoving them away until we feel nothing, and when we feel nothing, we can feel through our pain and our mission as Spider-man” to which Miles says stuff like “dude!!! I already explained that my brain was shorting out!!!” and “…um. Are you okay? Do you need therapy?”

Which makes Noir ask what therapy is which makes Miles explain which—honestly just ends up with Miles realizing that Noir has many issues (so many issues) and he’s kind of worried (he is _so_ worried).

Back to rainbow knives.

“I mean, probably somewhere in the world, we have rainbow knives?” Miles scrunches up his nose, “But they’re not common, if that’s what you’re asking. Like, chances are, if you do have a knife, it’s silver, which is like—a shiny grey?”

“Why,” Noir says, horrified, “Would you _willingly_ choose to use something that isn’t colourful?”

“It’s the natural colour of metal, I guess?” Miles shrugs, “It’s just more practical.”

“I lived my entire life thinking about practicality,” Noir says gravely. Like, gravelly-gravely. Like Batman gravely. Like—Miles should stop thinking of similes for Noir’s voice. “About what did its job. About what was efficient. Then I came to a world of wonder and _colour_ —a world filled with wonders that I had never seen nor could ever imagine. And you just live, complacent, like I did, accepting things that don’t give you joy? Living should be filled with wonder, everything should bring you joy.”

“I’ll be filled with wonder and joy in three weeks,” Miles says, “After my exams.”

Noir looks at him like he’s crazy. Miles thinks that he probably _is_. He _feels_ like he’s going crazy.

“Alright, alright,” Miles shrugs on a jacket and scrubs a hand over his face, “Want to go to an art museum?”

“An _art museum,_ ” Noir gasps, “What is that?”

“It’s, erm, like a giant house, except the only thing inside is art. Well, like, other stuff, but mostly art. And you—uh, you look at it.”

“I don’t understand,” Noir’s brow furrows.

“That’s, that’s fine,” Miles drags a hand through his hair, “I needed a break anyways. My eyes are swimming.”

“Another metaphor?” Noir asks.

“Hm? Oh—yeah. My eyes aren’t actually swimming.”

“I see,” Noir nods.

“You’ll like the museum,” Miles says, pocketing ten dollars for the door fee, “It’s pretty cool.”

* * *

Noir more than likes it.

He adores it.

“I’ve taken him to see three museums in the past two weeks,” Gwen says to Miles, sitting on her bed, a pillow in her hands, “It’s pretty nice, actually, since I usually like volunteering at events around the city, so I get to talk to the staff there in a stress-free environment.”

Miles squints at Gwen, “Are you real?” he asks and waves a hand in front of her. Gwen leans back, laughing. “You volunteer places in your free time and talk to adults?”

“It’s not as terrible as you make it sound,” Gwen rolls her eyes, “I’m just volunteering at places that sound cool. Before, it was either that, study, or waste my time online. Volunteering wasn’t bad, although the bus fees suck up most of my allowance.”

“You get an _allowance_?”

“Well,” Gwen shrugs, “It’s from the job I got last summer at this fast food place?” A shudder runs through her, “But my parents are holding onto it because I’m not responsible at all.”

Miles frowns, “So they took it to you?”

“No, I gave it to them,” Gwen tosses her pillow in the air and drops her arms by her sides. The pillow falls on her face and Miles hears her sigh, muffled through the pillow, “Why didn’t I see that coming?” The pillow slides off and Gwen looks red as she continues, “I didn’t trust myself.”

“That’s disturbingly responsible,” Miles squints at her, “Why are you making smart money choices?”

“Took a business class and it scared me half to death,” Gwen tips to the side, “I know, I’m amazing.”

“You kind of are.”

“Just kind of?” she grins at him.

“ _Really_ amazing.”

“There we go,” she says approvingly, and then laughs, “So what are you up to?”

Ooh boy. Gwen is volunteering and saving money and going on cool adventures and Miles…

 _Quick, say something interesting_.

“May made some really good apple pie the other day,” he blurts.

 _Oh my god, you’re so boring_.

“Aw, man,” Gwen pouts, “I want to eat apple pie! Why would you mention that? You’re making me hungry!”

“That’s not my fault,” Miles protests.

“ _May’s apple pie_ ,” Gwen buries her face in her pillow, “Your universe has that weird spice that ours doesn’t and it makes your pie so much better.”

“…Cinnamon?”

“Yeah! That!” Gwen falls backwards, “I hate you, Miles. Switch universes with me.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Miles laughs.

“Uuugh. Cinnamon,” Gwen pauses and pops up, “Wait, cinnamon, like cinnaspice?”

“…Cinnaspice?”

“Yeah! It’s this, like, exotic spice or something, but—“

* * *

She’s working the night shift when Spider-man appears, still and dark and all angles and bones.

It’s a weeknight, one where Miles is sleeping in his dorms at his school and Jefferson is working late on a case, so Rio decided why not and traded shifts with a friend who honestly needed the sleep.

It’s not Spider-man who’s hurt, she realizes after a brief moment of _oh no what do I do_ , but a little girl slung on his back, dark hair and bright eyes and a bruise on her cheek.

“I, um,” Spider-man stammers, shifting the girl on his back, “You’re a nurse, right?”

Rio glances at the girl on Spider-man’s back and nods, quick, tight, “Follow me.”

She has questions, of course, many questions, but those can wait, curiosity can wait as she guides Spider-man and the girl to a nearby room. Spider-man sets the girl down and the girl peers at Rio for a moment before smiling, “You’re the one with the lightning bandages, right? I didn’t remember wrong?”

Rio blinks, surprised, “Yes, I am! What a good memory you have!”

The girl smiles and relaxes a bit more.

Spider-man shifts a bit uncomfortably, before he rubs the back of his neck and mutters, “Sorry, miss.”

“Rio,” Rio says, raising an eyebrow, “For what?”

“For causing trouble… Mrs. Rio.”

“It’s no trouble,” Rio smiles at the girl, “It’s my job. Besides, this patient seems lovely. Would you like a duck bandaid or a bandaid shaped like Baymax?”

The girl’s eyes light up, “You have a bandaid shaped like _Baymax_?” she asks, wide-eyed with wonder.

Rio winks at Spider-man and offers the little girl the box of Big Hero 6 themed bandaids to choose from.

Spider-man watches, relaxed for a moment, before he says quietly, “Not her. For—I’m not the best at fighting, yet. I hit a bit harder than—” he hides his hands behind his back, like a kid trying to hide something, and mumbles, “I’m working on it.”

So he’s a superhuman, then. Rio files away the information, though she can’t think of anything she’d do with it. She isn’t exactly a scientist or detective, just a nurse.

“It’s fine,” she runs her fingers through her hair, “What happened?”

He shifts again, and shrugs, “The police will be here soon. You’re, um, that officer’s wife, right?”

“Officer Davis, yes,” Rio blinks. She hadn’t expected Spider-man to know something as small as that, “I don’t suppose she just tripped and got hurt, then.”

It’s not exactly a question.

Spider-man tilts his head, as though to say _you already know the answer_.

Her husband arrives a few minutes later, snarling under his breath about an attempted kidnapping to sell a little girl to the highest bidder, the older brother that had been taking the girl to a movie being knocked out by a steel pipe.

Rio thinks about the little girl with the Baymax-shaped bandaid waiting for her parents to pick her up and to see her brother, and tries not to think of what would have happened if Spider-man weren’t there.

“The kidnapper?”

“Spider-man caught him in the act, thankfully,” Jefferson sighs, running his fingers along the sleeve of his uniform, “Sent him into a brick wall, actually. _Literally_. There are pieces of the brick wall from where he hit the wall.”

Rio tries not to wince. She’s glad that she’s not the one treating the kidnapper, it sounds intense. “And how are you doing?” she asks, running her thumbs over his knuckles.

He sighs, and leans over to kiss her on the forehead, “Fine. Just—I don’t know what I’d do, if it were Miles, you know? It’s terrible, things like this.”

“I know,” she kisses him back, “Thank god for Spider-man protecting our kids.”

He smiles at her, and she smiles back.

Then there’s an awkward coughing and Spider-man appears with an officer, “We, uh, just got here,” the officer squeaks.

“Totally,” Spider-man bobs his head.

Jefferson sighs, and smiles wearily at her, “Well, off to work I go.”

She pats his elbow and his smile is a bit more awake before he goes off with the officer.

Spider-man lingers for a moment, and before he can speak, she asks, “Why did you come to me?”

He freezes, and Rio can almost hear the confused _what_ hanging in the air.

“Why not call an ambulance? Or go to the waiting room with her?”

“I, um,” He scratches his cheek, and the fabric of his mask shifts, “You’re good with kids. Patient and stuff.”

Her eyebrows furrow, “…have I treated you before?”

“No. No!” He yelps, waving his hands in front of his face, “No, no, it’s not like that, it’s just—“ he licks his lips, “You bought those bandaids, right? With your own money?”

Rio blinks, “How did you know?”

He shrugs, “The other nurses don’t give them out. And the kids that I’ve saved and talked to—they like you, that’s all. And she—she remembered that you gave her a lightning shaped bandage before, when she walked into a door-post and bumped her forehead, so I thought that maybe she’d feel more comfortable around you.”

It sounds like the truth, but it doesn’t quite feel like the full truth. But Rio knows better than to push, instead sighs, “If you need a nurse, you know where to find me.”

Spider-man stills, awkward and small, and then, he squeaks, “Thanks,” and vanishes. Just straight up vanishes.

(“Don’t worry,” Jefferson sighs, later, “He does that to get out of awkward situations.”

Miles chokes on his dinner when he hears that. Probably because he finds it so unbelievable, Rio thinks, amused. The young do seem to idolize Spider-man a bit, after all.

“Well, I’d like to talk to him again,” Rio sighs, “If only to properly thank him.”

“Don’t worry, mom,” Miles says awkwardly, “I’m sure he knows.”)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's going to be okay. You're going to be okay. Don't worry. You got this. Even if it doesn't feel like it, you do. And it'll all work out. Trust me.


	6. Standing Still (aka Quiet)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter shrugs, “Not like vegetables can kill you if you eat them raw, right? And even if they can…I have, like, super-healing, so I should probably be fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some days you're tired. It's alright. Clean your room. Take a shower. Do what needs to be done. Be kind to yourself. You're just as worth loving as anyone else who's important to you. Don't get mad at yourself for doing dumb things, it's alright, we learn and grow and I've probably done worse tbh. This has been your PSA, now hopefully this chapter's coherent because I woke up at like 5am today and I'm super tired my dudes.

Peni doesn’t talk a lot. She can, if she wants to, she can be cheerful and loud and babble with the best of them but with Miles, she doesn’t talk a lot.

At first, she talks. About random little things that happened through the day, about smart, technological advancements that he could never even dream of being done, about theories based on scientific knowledge that he has to make her repeat because it’s so advanced.

At first, she talks, and he listens.

And then, for a few days, she’s silent.

“Did I do something wrong?” Miles asks Gwen nervously, sketching out Gwen’s figure, legs folded criss-cross, pressing her chin on her knuckles.

Gwen smirks at him, crooked and amused, and answers brightly, “Why don’t you ask _Peni_?”

Miles groans and throws an eraser at Gwen. It goes through Gwen’s shoulder and Gwen presses a hand to her chest, faking offence.

“Did you just attempt to _murder_ me?”

“It was an _eraser_.”

“Unbe _lievable_. To think that I _trusted_ you—“

“Oh my _god_ ,” Miles flops back, “I’ll talk to her about it, okay? Please stop.”

“—Betrayed by my own kind—“

“I’m serious, Gwen—“

“—I’m practically Hulius Kaiser, I—“

“—Will you _please_ just chill, I promise to talk to her—“

“—Have been _betrayed_ , stabbed twenty-tree—wait, was it twenty three times? Hold up, I need to find out how many times Kaiser was stabbed—“

“—Stop trying to make me communicate with people and—wait, who is _Hulius Kaiser_?”

Gwen, who’s tapping on her phone, trying to figure out how many times this Hulius dude was stabbed, blinks owlishly at Miles. “Um, Hulius Kaiser? Roman Emperor or whatever? He’s like, the reason that—um—that the seventh month is called Hoolai?”

“ _Hoolai_? It’s _July_. After Julius Caesar?”

“Ugh, you sound so Australian.”

“I—what, I live in _Brooklyn_.”

Gwen wrinkles her nose. “Right. Okay, then. I suppose you pronounce Kikkeroh as Cicero as well?”

“…Uh, yes?”

“What,” Gwen pauses and sets down her phone. “You—I— _what_.”

“What.”

“I can’t. I can’t even.”

“Wait, this isn’t what I called you to talk about!”

“Yeah, well, now that I know that your world either anglicizes latin pronunciation or actually speaks latin differently—“

“I’m pretty sure we just anglicized it—“

“Sh, I’m talking, dude. Anyways, now that I know that you live in a world full of _barbarians_ —“

Miles groans.

“Okay, _rude_ , _I_ don’t groan loudly when you talk—“

“—Um, the sweater incident?”

“Oh,” Gwen pauses and blinks a bit, like she’s trying to reboot. “Right. That.” She snickers, “To be fair, you were being ridiculous.”

“My _sweater_ —that my grandma made for me—was _half burnt_ and my mom wanted me to wear it at Thanksgiving!”

“You worked around it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, by pretending that it caught on fire when I was cooking!”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that I burnt a sweater that my grandma made for me—“

“Dude, we’ve been _over_ this, if she’s alive, it doesn’t really matter—“

“—And I can’t _cook_ —“

“You literally live in a dorm away from home—“

“—And my ma thought that I was stupid enough to try to clean up a hot oil spill with a _wool sweater_!”

“To be fair, you’ve done some pretty dumb things.”

Miles throws his hands up in the air.

“Okay, okay,” Gwen holds up her hands, “I get it, Miles, you are sometimes insufferable and I am kind enough to let you know it.”

He glares at her.

“I love you too,” Gwen smiles sweetly, “So, back to your world’s history and its butchering of the pronunciation of Hulius Kaiser’s name—“

“No, back to the fact that Peni doesn’t talk to me and I don’t know what I did wrong—“

“Maybe you didn’t do anything wrong.” Gwen holds up a hand. “You ever consider that?”

“She’s not talking to me as much, though.”

“Is it bad?”

“No—I mean, it’s nice, it’s very peaceful—but just because I feel comfortable doesn’t mean that _she_ does.”

“But it’s not, like, awkward or anything? You like the quiet?”

“Well, sure, but—“

“Then what’s the problem?”

“What if _she_ doesn’t like it?”

“Dude,” Gwen wrinkles her nose, “just talk to her.”

“But—“

“Talk to her. Bye,” Gwen offers him a two fingered salute and then flickers out.

“You’re not helpful,” Miles grumbles to the space where Gwen used to be, even though she kinda was.

“I find, kiddo,” Peter drawls, chin on the back of his hands, eyebrows raised, “That talking to someone is usually the way to go.”

“Ugh,” Miles throws a pencil at Peter, “You’re just like Gwen.”

“Helpful and emotionally put together?”

“ _Useless_ ,” Miles grumbles, even though both Gwen and Peter have a point and he’s just being kind of dumb at this point.

“Well, usually I enjoy brooding and staying alone,” Noir says, shrugging, “Had a chap, once, who was captured and tortured by Nazis. After that he committed suicide, though, and I was a bit regretful that I didn’t talk to him more.”

“So… I should talk to Peni about it?”

“Oh, okay,” Spider-ham says, “So we’re just totally ignoring the fact that Noir needs therapy.”

“He’s talking to someone on Peter’s end,” Miles reassures Spider-ham, “they sorted it out a few days ago.”

“Well, _that’s_ a relief,” Spider-ham says.

So Miles does it. He… _talks_ … to Peni.

Oh gosh.

OH BOY.

This was a mistake.

This was dumb.

This was the most ridiculous thing he’s ever wanted and…

“Hm,” Peni says, half-concentrating on some little red robot, “It isn’t that anything’s wrong—the opposite, really. I’m comfortable, just being with you. Before it was kinda just me and SP//dr. I didn’t talk to anyone all that much, so it’s just nice, being in the same room with you. We don’t need to talk, I guess?”

“Oh,” Miles blinks, “Yeah, that’s cool. Like how sometimes Gwen and I just draw in the same room together.”

“Exactly,” Peni beams, and pats the ground next to her, “C’mon, sit down, you wanted me to teach you about bots, right? So this is a pretty simple kid’s toy, and I reprogrammed it so—“

* * *

 

Sometimes all that Miles can think about is everything that has to be done. All the expectations on his chest. And it used to be easy to just—throw it all away. To just cast aside the expectations and do what he was doing.

Then he became Spider-man. Then the teachers started talking about preparing for University. Then suddenly everything gets—complicated.

“I get it. Normal is fine. Normal isn’t bad,” he plays with the tassels of the weird pillow that his mom got him, bumpy knit sunflowers and neon blue music notes. (It’s hideous, and Miles will never admit it, but he loves it almost as much as Noir does.) “It’s just—it feels like the world’s turning and I’m just…”

“Here,” Peter finishes his sentence, smiling wanly as he dumps the soy sauce into his pan of meat. “Yeah. I get it. It’s like everyone else is going and being amazing and doing cool things and you can barely cling to what you’ve got, let alone move on, right?”

“It’s… sometimes it’s hard, yeah? But other times it’s not enough. I want to do something amazing, something that leaves a mark, something that makes other people—“ Miles flops back, “I sound dumb. I know that being seen isn’t going to make me happy and I know that I should be happy with what I have now. It’s just—“ he waves a hand and leaves Peter to fill in the blanks.

“You know, MJ was a model?” Peter pours in the green beans, “And this girl from high school—Betty Brant—she became a famous investigative journalist. Wrote a few books too, I think. I was friends with the guy who was CEO of a company for a while. He turned out to be evil—but, y’know. CEO of a company. And it was—it was nuts. Like it wasn’t just random people who were amazing. It was real people who I knew and it felt like I was juts getting left behind. Like I _had_ to do something amazing.”

“But you don’t?”

“Nah,” Peter leaves the lid on the pan and lowers the heat to let the beans simmer, “Being amazing in all those ways—it always felt weird to me that they didn’t think that it was amazing, you know? They were out there, being world famous and they acted like it was something ordinary. But then, also… you’re Spider-man, Miles. You’re a superhero. That’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?”

“It’s not that amazing,” Miles frowns at his hands, “It’s just—doing what I can. What I’ve got to do. Anyone could have been Spider-man, if they had these powers.”

“See?” Peter pulls a plate from his cabinet, “You think it’s normal when you’re here, doing your own amazing thing. People don’t see the cool parts of themselves because it doesn’t feel cool. It just feels normal. But it isn’t—it’s something other people think is wicked cool, and to you it’s just another day.”

“Spider-man doesn’t really require anything besides stubbornness, though,” Miles points out.

“Yeah, well,” Peter shoves his hands into his pockets, forehead creasing for a moment, before he says, “Maybe you aren’t famous. Maybe you don’t own your own business. But—do you have to be that way? Would it make you happy, to be like that?”

Miles groans, “Can’t you just give me a straight answer?”

“No,” Peter lifts the lid and stirs around his green beans, “Do these look soft to you or should I simmer them a bit more?”

“I don’t know, man,” Miles squints, “Poke them.”

Peter pokes them with his finger instead of using the _cooking stick_. “Ow!”

“Why would you use your finger?”

“You told me to poke it!”

“With your _cooking stick_!”

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“By using your _brain_?”

Peter moves to his sink and turns on the tap, “I would be insulted if my finger weren’t in pain.”

Miles buries his face in his hands, “I can’t believe you’re my _mentor_.”

“I can’t either,” Peter squints at Miles, “You could do better.”

“Considering my other options,” Miles grimaces, “I really can’t.”

Peter purses his lips together, tilts his head to the side, and says, “Oh wow that’s true. This is terrible. I feel bad for you.”

“Straight answer now?”

“Sorry, kiddo,” Peter frowns at his pot, “I think that it’s good now. You?”

“I don’t know, man.”

Peter shrugs, “Not like vegetables can kill you if you eat them raw, right? And even if they can…I have super-healing.”

“That doesn’t sound like confident reasoning.”

“Eh,” Peter shakes a hand and pours his green beans and meat into a glass container, “So—sometimes you feel like you’re getting left behind. And that’s alright. You’ve gotta think about your ideal life. What you think sounds good. You could have everything in the world and still be miserable if it’s not what you wanted. Some people are happy with living quiet lives. Some people want louder lives. What do _you_ want?”

“I don’t know,” Miles mumbles.

“What do you want to do?”

Miles picks at a sunflower on the pillow, “I don’t know.”

“Okay, sorry, that was vague,” Peter makes a frustrated noise and starts to wash his pan, “What’s something you want to be able to do, say, at least once a week, but you don’t?”

Miles tries to think about it, “I… um… read a book or something?”

“Then start with that,” Peter offers Miles a crooked grin, “You aren’t anyone else. Some people want to own a business. Some people want to rule the world. I just want to live a peaceful life and keep everyone I love alive,” he shrugs, “You don’t have to want more to be happy.”

“I know,” Miles says, quietly, “I just—do I have to be more than just happy? Do I have to be productive and stuff?”

“Well, that part’s up to you,” Peter says quietly. “Me, I just want to be happy and at peace. I’d like that. Maybe you want more. Maybe you don’t. It’s alright, if it takes you some time to figure it out.”

“You know,” Miles blinks at Peter, “For someone who poked a hot pan with his finger, you can be surprisingly wise at times.”

“ _Surprisingly_?” Peter squawks.

Miles laughs, and the world spins, but he’s content, for the moment, staying still like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something cool that works for me is thinking: "What's best for the me of tomorrow?" It always makes the next day better, so each day's nice so long as you keep doing this every day. When you think like this, you always kinda know what to do, yeah? Like yeah, wash the dishes now, so you don't have to do as many tomorrow. Sleep before 10pm (or whatever time works for you) so that when you wake up tomorrow, you're refreshed and awake. Eat healthy now, and you'll feel good tomorrow. Stuff like that. Hopefully this helps?


	7. On Fear and Running

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I—I can’t be scared. If I get scared, I’ll run away.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expand your horizons. Go to the QSA meeting. Try to book bind. Learn to pole dance. Maybe you'll love it. I spent forever avoiding Kpop and now I'm low key obsessed with it. Maybe you won't like it. I tried to play Undertale and I couldn't because I cried every time that I was told to leave Toriel. You don't have to make a commitment. You just have to try. And if you're tired and can't summon the energy? Something small. Try a new recipe or read a new book. It doesn't have to be grand. Just keep growing. The wider your horizons, the more beautiful the world is.

“Fisk has escaped,” the captain says, and next to him, Jefferson can hear Spider-man’s breath shutter.

“On it,” Jefferson says, watching out of the corner of his eye as Spider-man offers a two fingered salute and a cheerful _cool, thanks_.

“Well, then, Mr. Officer,” Spider-man’s grinning at him from under the mast, Jefferson just _knows_ it, “Shall we team up?”

“This doesn’t mean that I approve of you being Spider-man,” Jefferson says, but judging by Spider-man’s little laugh, they both know that it’s all show and no substance by this point.

They search around, ask witnesses and people with connections to Fisk. Don’t find him that night, but that’s fine, that’s normal.

“See you tomorrow?” Jefferson holds out a hand.

Spider-man takes it and says quietly, “Officer,” then he’s gone.

And it isn’t that Jefferson isn’t unused to Spider-man suddenly vanishing, it’s just that…

“He seemed worried,” he tells Rio, running his fingers through her hair.

“Well, Fisk was the first big bad that he went up across,” Rio kisses his cheek, “C’mon, sweetie, let’s get some sleep.”

So he agrees, and decides he’ll pursue it tomorrow.

__

“I’m not scared,” Miles tells May, even though he might, possibly, actually be a little scared.

“There’s nothing wrong with fear,” May says, “Peter was scared all the time.”

Miles gnaws on his lower lip, and then he mutters, “I wanted to stay out. To find him, even after my dad left. But I knew that it wouldn’t help.”

“You made the right choice.”

“I know. There’s no reason to be scared, it’s not that bad, it’s just—“

“Fisk is an intimidating guy,” May says lightly.

“I handled him the first time.”

“With all the other Spider-people from all the other dimensions.”

“Right,” Miles buries his face in his hands, “But I can handle him.”

“It’s okay to be scared.”

“I—I can’t be scared. If I get scared, I’ll run away.”

“No you won’t.”

“I will. I always run away.”

__

“I was terrified,” Jefferson admits quietly as they walk away from questioning a suspect, “The first time, watching that fight. When Fisk hit you and you just—didn’t get up for a moment. I was terrified that you were—“ he cuts off. “So it’s alright to be scared.”

“I know,” Spider-man says, quietly, “The person who helps me out told me that it was alright. Which is why I told you. But how do you just—just ignore it?”

“I don’t ignore it. I just think… I want to stop someone else from feeling that kind of fear. And that doesn’t dismiss my fear. That doesn’t make me being afraid any less important. It’s just… you can’t walk away, I guess, from that. From protecting others. You know?”

“Yeah,” Spider-man says, quietly, “I know.”

__

Sometimes Miles still dreams of that moment where his head hits the metal and there are fingers on the back of his neck and blood on his lashes and his head rings as the temptation to just stay down and close his eyes claws at his chest.

He wakes each time with the certainty that he will get back up again.

(Sometimes he doesn’t wake with the certainty that he’ll win. Just that he has to fight. Because if he doesn’t—if he stays down—what kind of person would he be?)

__

“You’re a real hero, kid,” Peter sometimes says, something soft and awed in his voice even though Miles never really did anything to deserve that.

“It’s what anyone would have done,” Miles shrugs, and Peter gets that look, like he doesn’t think that Miles is right but he doesn’t want to argue.

“Just… just know that you’re a good kid, alright? When I became Spider-man—I wanted to be someone like the person that you are. I wanted to share that kind of good with the world.”

“You are good,” Miles says.

Peter shrugs and smiles a bit, “I’m working to be,” he says, and it isn’t certainty in his voice but Miles knows that it’s as close as he’ll get.

“You are,” he says, and one day that will be enough.

__

The cops catch Fisk and Spider-man isn’t even needed. Somehow it doesn’t stop the feeling of fear that Miles gets when he hears Fisk’s name.

__

“It’s alright,” Gwen says, “Fear doesn’t need to be rational.”

“It’s stupid,” Miles mumbles.

“Of course it is,” Gwen sighs, “But avoiding the topic won’t change anything. Talk about it with someone. It’s alright to be afraid, even if it doesn’t make sense. I was terrified of making friends or getting attached after Peter’s death. But then I met you guys. And now I’m getting better. Don’t run away, Miles.”

__

“Not running away doesn’t mean necessarily mean facing your villain again,” Noir rubs the side of his nose, “Sometimes it just means admitting that you’re afraid to yourself. There’s nothing wrong with that. And if you need support, we’re here for you, bud.”

“Peter’s therapist is good for you, huh?”

“He’s _awesome_! Last week we talked about emotions some more, and it turns out that I can actually admit them instead of suppressing them until I use them to punch people and it’s _good_ to do that! He let me _cry_ , it was _amazing_.”

Miles is super worried for Noir. “Good for you, bud. Sounds like therapy’s doing some good stuff.”

__

“OMIGOD.”

“WHAT.”

“YOU HAVE A SPIDER ON YOUR NECK.”

“Oh.” Miles slaps his neck and sure enough, his hand comes away with a twitching spider.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Peter says, horrified, “You have nerves of steel.”

“…Not really? Spiders aren’t that scary, man.”

“They are terrifying in every way.”

“They’re tiny!”

“They are DANGEROUS.”

“You don’t even live in an area with poisonous spiders? The worst that can happen is you get bitten, it’s itchy for a week or two, then it’s gone.”

Peter stares, “How.”

“How do you deal with spiders?”

“I freak out and talk myself into it for an hour then once I summon the courage, I use a flyswatter.”

“What if it’s _on_ you?”

“Then I dissociate and deal with it while my brain’s panicking.”

“That’s super unhealthy, dude.”

“I know.”

“You think I should deal with my fear like that?”

“Please don’t. My therapist is working on me.”

__

“So Peter’s scared of spiders,” Gwen nods, “Should’ve expected this.”

“But he’s not scared of any of his baddies,” Miles frowns at his burger. “I don’t get it.”

“Peter doesn’t fear death,” Gwen sighs at Miles’ fries. “I want a milkshake.”

“You should get one.”

“I’m too lazy.”

Miles laughs, “So if I don’t fear death, I won’t be afraid of Fisk?”

“That is not the takeaway here, Miles.”

“Well, how do _you_ deal with fear?”

“I acknowledge it. I talk about it with someone that I trust. And—stuff.”

“You’re new to this too, huh.”

“Yeah. I’m still using Peter’s therapist until I find one in my own dimension.”

“Huh. You think that I should check out Peter’s therapist?”

Gwen offers Miles’ burger a longing look, “Yeah. Do your burgers have _raw onions_ in them?”

“Um, yeah, why?”

“Dude. Like… not as part of the beef?”

“No? What are your universe’s burgers like?”

__

“Every time I see Fisk, I’m afraid that I’m going to die.”

“That’s fair,” May tilts her head, “Considering that dying’s a very big possibility.”

“But I don’t want to run away.”

“Which is why you’re Spider-man.”

“I just—I feel like once I admit that I’m afraid, I won’t want to face my fear.”

“Miles,” May reaches out and pats his shoulder, “Why did you go back with the other Spider-people to fight Fisk, the first time around?”

“I had to do it. If I didn’t, someone would stay and die.”

“And you weren’t afraid, at all? You already saw Fisk kill Peter.”

“I—sure. But I couldn’t—I couldn’t run away.”

May leans back.

“Oh. I— _oh_. Oh. I get it now.”

May smirks, “You’re welcome.”

__

It’s not that he isn’t afraid. He is.

It’s just—fear isn’t enough to stop him. Because he’s Spider-man, and there are some things that Spider-man’s gotta do.

So he isn’t running away. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be afraid.

__

“Wait,” Miles frowns at Peter’s therapist, “If I ignore my fear during a fight, doesn’t that mean that I’m, like, suppressing my emotions?”

“Kind of,” Peter’s therapist admits. A bright pink piece of construction paper is taped to the front of his desk with the name _Fengchi_ scrawled in pale blue crayon. “Adrenaline can help, but ultimately, I think, the key is to be afraid enough to stay sharp but not so afraid that you’re overwhelmed and can’t concentrate on the fight.”

“Oh. So I’ve gotta be alert but not paranoid?”

“If you can do that, you’re miles ahead of most,” Fengchi smiles a bit at his pun.

“You’re terrible.”

“Kind of.”

“No, not kind of, that pun was awful!”

__

“Hey, Peter, what’s—why are you on the fridge?”

“There’s a spider on the floor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter doesn't end very conclusively. I think that there are many ways to deal with fear and I'm no expert on it. But it wasn't really meant to talk about how to deal with fear... I think it's more meant to say that it's okay to be afraid and there are moments when you can't let that stop you. There are some fears that you don't have to face (ex. fear of heights is perfectly reasonable and you probably can live your entire life with a fear of heights and still be fine), but others you've got to face, for your own sake (ex. fear of being vulnerable around people may protect you from being hurt but it also makes you lonely).


	8. Home (aka Moving Forward)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I have you guys,” he says to Gwen, quietly, “And it’s—it’s okay. But we don’t know each other so well beyond the Spider thing, not yet. And there’s only so far we can go because I can’t touch you or walk around with you or check out new places downtown. So it’s different.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really like this chapter because it's a bit all over the place but I still hope you'll all enjoy it. I've found that it's harder to end things conclusively... it's a bit like, life isn't conclusive with neat little bows, and sometimes the best we can do is just keep moving forward anyways despite that. I don't really know, maybe it's because I'm young. Also! If it is after 9pm at the moment, get off your device and prepare for bedtime, you need to s l e e p. My fic will be here in the morning.

It’s not that Miles _dislikes_ his new school. It isn’t that he’s unhappy here. It’s that—it’s that he used to have a home in his neighbourhood, in his old school, and now he’s somewhere new and it’s nice and cool and great and it’s different and it’s fine but sometimes he misses what used to be.

Ganke is great. Ganke is _awesome_. Art club is cool. Classes are infinitely more interesting and he loves the challenge.

But he used to be able to sketch at Jake’s feet and now he only sees Jake on Monday mornings and sometimes Saturday afternoons. He used to reach over and steal Sarah’s food and now he doesn’t even know what colour Sarah’s dyed her hair recently.

It isn’t that it’s bad.

It’s that he lost something of a home but he still _has_ his home, still lives in Brooklyn in his same house with his same parents and it’s the same but it’s different and it’s—jarring, kind of. Losing people but not losing people.

Knowing they’re still his friends but also knowing that when lunch comes, he can’t just sit on the floor and sketch and feel the bump of knees against his shoulders and know that he belongs no matter what.

He can’t just—steal Jake’s sweater or braid Sarah’s hair or—

He had people that he was _close_ to, and now he… doesn’t.

“I have you guys,” he says to Gwen, quietly, “And it’s—it’s okay. But we don’t know each other so well beyond the Spider thing, not yet. And there’s only so far we can go because I can’t touch you or walk around with you or check out new places downtown. So it’s different.”

“Yeah,” Gwen says softly. She touches the side of her head, where her hair grows in soft little tufts, “I get it. My Peter was the closest friend I had. Then he turned into the Lizard and… y’know, died. And I don’t—I don’t even remember how I befriended him. We were just always—always close. And my new friend, he’s cool but he’s—it takes time.”

Miles smiles a bit, “Look at us. Having honest conversations with emotional vulnerability.”

“I wonder if Fengchi will give us gold stars.”

“We can’t touch them, though.”

“Ugh. You’re right. What’s the point of having stickers that you can’t touch?”

“There is none.”

Gwen sighs, locking her fingers together over her knee. “I want—I want more—but I know that friendships don’t last forever and that—that scares me a little. That no matter how great or perfect it seems in the moment, it doesn’t last.”

“It could.”

“But it probably won’t,” Gwen buries her face in her arms, “I’m such a jerk. I keep leaving before others can leave me and then complaining about it.”

“It’s okay to be scared,” Miles says, “I’m scared, like, _all_ the time.”

Gwen laughs a bit, “You’re doing alright.”

“So are you.”

“Mm,” Gwen leans over and presses her hands against her feet, “It’s not a great feeling, losing someone. I know it’s supposed to be a good thing, that things change and life moves on, but it’s—it’s scary, too. Because so many people have bad endings. So many people start off great and end up lonely or unhappy, and I’m scared that the future won’t be as good as the past. But if I hang onto the past, the future won’t be good. _Urgh_.”

Miles laughs, “Yeah, I get that. Or for me, it’s more like…I know that the future will be better, but I want it to just come _now_. I don’t want to wait and keep working so the future is good, I just want to be able to rest and be where I want to be. But I’ll never really get to rest because I always have to work for a better future.”

“Once you retire?”

“Once I’m sixty, you mean?”

“Yeah. When you’re old and have no hair.”

“Excuse me, I’ll have tons of hair.”

“Yeah, right,” Gwen snickers, “Tons of hair to cover up your giant bald spot.”

Miles waves a hand through Gwen, “Well, _you_ won’t be much better.”

“Of course I will. Have you seen old ladies? They always look fantastic.”

“Nuh-uh. You’ll have a weird old person smell.”

Gwen cracks up, “Old person smell?”

“Yeah.”

Gwen shakes her head and laughs for a while, before she leans back and closes her eyes, “I mean, I think right now we can still have a little peace. I think we should always be able to find peace. Or at least that’s what Fengchi says.”

“Yeah? Did he say how?”

“He said it was by focusing on the now and nothing else.”

“That sounds kinda…witchy.”

Gwen shoots Miles a strange look, “ _Witchy_?”

“I don’t know. Like, witches focus on stuff and… I don’t know where I’m going with this. But, I mean, don’t you have to focus on the future, or you can’t get a good future? Like, if you procrastinate at looking at University programs, you might not get into the one you want because you won’t know what to do.”

“No, I don’t think he meant it like that. More like…” Gwen frowns and says, “I’m going to hang up and you’re going to call back, then I’m taking you on a tour of my New York, okay?”

“Okay,” so Miles hangs up and calls her back.

When he calls, Gwen is sitting on her balcony and grinning, hair braided back with a bright blue scrunchie at the end. “Check out these plants,” he wheels around, “Got those two cacti over the weekend. My dad says I’m getting too much, though, so I’m trying to cut down.”

“How’s that going for you?” Miles asks, grinning.

Gwen smirks unrepentantly, which is as good as an answer. “C’mon,” she picks up the communicator and slides down the drainpipe.

“Daredevil.”

“I know,” she starts to walk down the street. “See that coffee shop across the street? Used to be a convenience store. Now I don’t know where to find my cotton candy or slushies. The closest I can find is a frappuccino, which has _coffee_.”

“Yummy, but not a slushy,” Miles says.

“ _Thank you_. I didn’t like that convenience store so much, though,” she crosses the road, “It had overpriced stuff and it always smelled like smoke. The coffee shop is way better. It has great pastries, too. But I cried like crazy when it closed.”

Miles is silent as they step into the coffee shop, a bell chiming above to announce their arrival. The interior is chestnut, broken by a marble counter and a few plants planted strategically around the shop.

“Why?” he asks when it seems clear that Gwen is waiting for him to say something.

“Because I used to go there all the time with Peter. And when I lost the convenience store, it felt like losing a part of him. It really set in that the world was moving on, and I had to as well.” Gwen orders a white hot chocolate and sits down in a seat near the corner.

Miles sits down, “So what do you do?” he asks, studying his hands, “When the world moves on and you can’t?”

“You look for one thing,” Gwen takes the lid off her drink. Steam curls up, foam bouncing on top of the drink, “You look at the hot chocolate and you say _I like this_.”

“It’s just hot chocolate.”

“I know,” Gwen says quietly, “It’s just hot chocolate. But you like that. And you let that make you happy. It’s small and unimportant but it makes me happy so that’s enough for now.”

“That doesn’t stop me from missing my friends,” Miles says.

Gwen’s smile is tired as she props her chin on her hands, “You think I don’t know that, metre stick? You take your new friends with you. You take as many steps as you can at a time, and if that’s only one step, or just you flopping forward on your face, you’re still moving forward. And that’s gotta be enough for you.”

Miles stares at Gwen’s hot chocolate, at the dark red cup and the little letters saying _Caution! May be hot!_ printed neatly on the side. “Okay.”

Gwen nods, “It’s frustrating, isn’t it? It doesn’t fix anything. You can’t take two steps forward and then one step back, but you want to so badly. You want to be able to somehow keep the perfect parts from the past while moving on towards a good future. But life doesn’t work like that.”

“Why are you so much better at this than me?” Miles demands.

“I’ve been going to way more therapy,” Gwen finger guns, “Your main issue is that you want people to be close to, right? People that you can talk to and touch and just be comfortable with.”

Miles looks away, “Yeah.”

“Well, you’ve got to make new friends. Stick with them. Make false starts. Ditch the losers.”

Miles cracks a smile.

Gwen looks proud of herself for making him smile, “Be open with people who are open with you. You can do this. I’m learning to do it, too.”

Miles grins, “Ah, yes, your mysterious new friend. Plan on telling us about them?”

“No way,” Gwen pulls back and makes a face, “Maybe… maybe in the future. You make friends first, though.”

Miles sighs, “Okay. You’re working on being less lonely, too, right?”

Gwen adopts a distant look on her face, “Yeah,” she sighs, “I am.”

(He goes back to his dorm that night and asks Ganke if he wants to check out a new ice cream shop downtown over the weekend.

Ganke says yes and he still misses what used to be home but it’s a step forward so maybe it will be enough for now, even if it doesn’t feel like it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I talk about being excited and broadening your horizons and enjoying life but sometimes that's hard. Sometimes you're tired and everything sucks and you know what? You're alive and that's enough. That's awesome. Do what you can. And if you can't do anything that feels productive, y'know what? Doing things that make you feel at peace, that keeps you going just a lil longer, is super productive. Just make sure it makes you at peace in the long run, that it isn't a "feel good now by borrowing tomorrow's happiness" thing. Stay alive and that's enough, for now and always.


	9. Little Things (aka Temporary Things)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *jazz hands* Bonding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never really like my chapters (some I kinda dislike) but you guys always seem to like them quite a bit so keep in mind that maybe you don't like something you made and think it isn't good enough but other people will really love it and you're really your own worst critic. You may think poorly of yourself, but you're doing just fine, I promise.

A tourist once described New York as a hard place, somewhere filled with concrete and stone, without the softness of grass in the suburbs or the quiet of forests, and Miles can understand that, except he can’t quite, because New York has always been home and home was familiar.

Familiarity, he thinks, can never be something hard or distant, familiarity is soft and peaceful in its own way.

New York has a lot of people. A _lot_ of people. And maybe an outsider would see that as cold or isolating, being a person in a crowd, but Miles finds something exhilarating about it.

That every car that speeds by as he’s falling asleep has someone different inside, that every person who passes is living their own narrative, sometimes it blows his mind.

A large population has more capacity for cruelty and carelessness, but he likes to think that means there’s also more space for compassion and kindness.

“You’re a _sap_ ,” Ganke says, sounding delighted as he watches Miles bend over to pick up some litter, “And also way too nice. Why are you carrying around trash?”

“Because litter is bad,” Miles scans the streets for a possible place to put his trash.

Ganke stares at him like he’s grown a second head. “You’re a _superhero_ ,” he says in a hushed voice, “honest-to-god superhero who walks on walls and punches baddies. And you’ve decided to pick up _trash_.”

“What kind of hero would I be if I didn’t pick up litter?” Miles demands as he jogs over to a nearby trash can and deposits the litter. He picks up some pieces of trash around it that must have been blown out by the wind and dumps them in as well.

“A human one?”

“I am human,” Miles says. He thinks that it’s the good in people that makes people human, and that makes them heroes, and says as much to Ganke. “What kind of person would I be if I didn’t try my best to make the world a better place?”

“A normal person,” Ganke declares, even as he bends over to pick up some litter to help Miles.

“You’re helping me right now,” Miles points out, “So really, you’re just proving my point.”

“I’m only helping because I feel guilty about you doing good and me just standing here like a moral less evil cowboy.”

“…Evil cowboy?”

“I don’t know where that came from.”

Miles laughs, “Okay. But it’s your decision to help me. You’re consciously choosing to do that, right this moment. You don’t have to. But you do. And I admire that. I think that’s great.”

“But I’m only doing this because _you_ are.”

“Whatever your reasons, you’re doing something good.”

“Dude, I’m trying to compliment you here and call you a good guy.”

“And _I’m_ trying to tell you that your standards are way too low,” they finish up cleaning that area and clap their hands in an attempt to clean off any gross stuff left on them. It’s late afternoon, the sun warm against his skin and birds flapping around cars stuck in weekend traffic. “I think there’s a shaved ice place near here.”

“Without having lunch first?”

“Oh, right,” Miles checks his phone, “You have any cravings?”

“Burgers?”

“Sounds good,” Miles pockets his phone, “I don’t know. New York is just—it’s home, you know?”

“I guess,” Ganke glances around, “I never really thought about it. But yeah—I like that there’s so much here. That there are two different comic book shops just around the corner and places with shaved ice and restaurants with food from countries that I’ve never even heard of.”

“That’s not because of New York,” Miles snickers, bumping his shoulder against Ganke’s, “That’s just because you fall asleep in Geography.”

Ganke bumps his shoulder back, “And who’s fault is that?” he demands, “ _You_ were the one who kept me up all night watching Steven Universe!”

“You were enabling me! You could have told me to stop at any time!”

“It’s a really good show,” Ganke sighs.

“ _See_ , it’s not my fault.”

“It is. It’s my fault, too. It’s both our faults,” Ganke says, “But somehow _you_ weren’t falling asleep in class even though I _know_ that you don’t drink coffee. Is that another part of your superpowers?”

“Nah,” Miles grins, folding his hands behind his back, “I nap at lunchtime.”

“When do you eat?”

“After class.”

“ _Dude_.”

“I have big breakfasts.”

“You need to eat,” Ganke pokes Miles’ stomach, “Don’t skip lunch.”

“I’m not skipping lunch! I’m just eating after class!”

“Then why don’t I ever see you eating after class?”

“Because we both have clubs after school!”

Ganke folds his arms over his chest, “Mm-hm.”

“ _Ganke_. Don’t give me that look. _Ganke!_ ”

“You need to eat, Miles.”

“I need to _sleep_.”

“Then we’ll both sleep at night time,” Ganke says boldly, “We’ll get off my laptop at a healthy time and be in bed by ten pm.”

“ _Ten_?”

“Would you like it to be earlier?”

“No. No, I’m good. What about homework?”

Ganke snorts, “When have you ever had homework leftover after dinner?”

“Okay, fine, point. But my _free time_ and relaxation?”

“You know what’s relaxing? Sleep.”

“But—“

“Miles,” Ganke drops a hand on Miles’ shoulder, “How terrible would it be if New York’s finest hero dropped from the sky and _died_ because he fell asleep mid-swing?”

Miles looks offended, “I wouldn’t do that.”

Ganke raises an eyebrow, “Napping during lunch is not okay.”

Miles scowls.

Ganke does not move.

“Fine, _mom_.”

“Love you, too,” Ganke swings an arm over Miles’s shoulder, “So, burgers?”

__

They have dinner late that night because Jefferson stayed late to work on a case. He heads straight to bed and Miles washes the dishes while his mom sits on the sofa, and they chat. When Miles is done with the dishes, he sits on the arm of the sofa and continues talking with his mom.

The world is dark and their only light is the one hanging over the living room, illuminating a small circle around them. It isn’t eerie, just soft and strangely comfortable, as though they’re the only people in the world and nothing else matters, like this moment, just the two of them, together, is all that exists, all that matters.

“It’s good to know that you’re enjoying school, now,” his mom says, smiling faintly, “We were worried for a while.”

“It’s fine,” Miles says quietly, “I didn’t like it at first but—I get it. It’s a better school. Classes are more challenging and engaging and my classmates are actually interested.”

“Did you ever get mad at us?” Rio pats the seat next to her, “For not giving you more of a say.”

Miles slides into the seat beside her, legs still hooked over the couch arm, and rests his head on her shoulder. “I was at first,” he admits, “But I think it was for the better.”

Rio presses her lips against the top of her head, “Sometimes I worry that we’re making you do too much,” she says quietly, “Forcing you to go to a private school and making you do chores like washing dishes and doing laundry and cleaning the house and sometimes cooking—I’m sure your friends have more freedom.”

“It’s fine, mom,” Miles says, “It’s not too much at all. I still get tons of time to hang out with my friends and I’m glad that I can help out at home.”

“You should get to be a kid,” Rio says, “Your dad and I, we worked all the time when we were younger, because we had to, and we never wanted you to have to be like that. We wanted to let you be a kid. And now that you’re older, we’re making you do more work. I wish you had more time to just—do whatever you wanted. But if we didn’t make you do some things now—then when could you learn? I think it’s better that you’re doing it now, when you have us around, than on your own in college when everything’s hitting you all at once.”

“It is better,” Miles says, “Don’t worry about it, mom. I’m glad that you’re teaching me all these things now.”

She sighs, “You know we love you, right, Miles? And if it ever gets too much—tell us. Or tell someone. It doesn’t have to be us, if that makes you uncomfortable. But don’t keep it all in.”

“I won’t, mom. I’m not overwhelmed, I’m fine.”

“I know. I just—I keep hearing about all these kids who drop out of university or do drugs and they’re too ashamed to go home but I don’t want you to feel like that. If you screw up in any way, no matter how bad it is, you can still come home. You’re still our kid, no matter what, and we’ll still love you, no matter what.”

Miles closes his eyes and wraps his arms around her in a side hug. “I know, mom. I love you, too,” it’s an almost overwhelming kind of love, one that wants to hold her and stay in this moment forever, just listening to her talk forever.

“Yeah,” she kisses his forehead and leans back so he can see her face if he looks up, “You know, if your dad and I put pressure on you—it’s because we want to know that you can be taken care of, in the future. That you’ll be okay, even without us as a safety net. It’s still a while off, but I just—when you’re an adult, and we pass on, we just want to know that you’re alright. But if that ever compromises your happiness or how you feel and makes you resentful, I want you to tell us. If you fail, it will never change how we feel about you. Your worth doesn’t depend on anything you do, okay? We put pressure on you because we love you, but even if you don’t do any of the things we tell you to do, or you can’t, that’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”

Miles starts crying. It’s a strange kind of crying, something quiet and hot that slips down his cheeks but doesn’t block his nose or make his throat tight, he’s just crying from his eyes and nowhere else.

It isn’t that it hurts, just knowing that one day his mom will be gone and she won’t be around, he knows that he'll miss her when she's gone and he knows that it will hurt but he can't even imagine how bad and he cries because he never wants to miss his mom, he wishes she could just always be around to scold him and kiss his forehead and just... be his mom.

He knows that there won’t be anything to be angry about, that it’ll just be that she’ll grow old and maybe die peacefully and he’ll be fine, he’ll just miss her and it makes him cry, that there’s nothing that he’ll be able to do but be sad for a while and move on.

Miles hopes that his mom won’t notice, because he wants her to keep talking, wants to keep this moment a little longer, the two of them against each other, talking.

She talks a little longer, softly, and then notices, brushing the tears from his cheek and apologizing.

“It’s fine,” Miles says quietly, voice cracking, “I just—I’ll miss you.”

“It’s a long way off, Miles,” she says, wiping the tears from the corners of his eyes, but he thinks she understands, a bit, how he feels.

“I know,” he says, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she brings him the tissues and he blows his nose, “It’s late, why don’t we get some sleep?”

He squeezes her hands and throws his tissues in the garbage, “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not super happy with the Rio and Miles conversation at the end because I wanted it to be so much more than I could make it. Writing can never perfectly get across what I wanted to, and I feel like it failed a lot in that scene here. I wanted to get across an idea of unconditional love and the way that loving someone (in a healthy relationship) will always be a bit bittersweet but it's always worth it. I think the best things in life are a little bittersweet and found in the ordinary. I don't really have anything "wise" to put here today, just... I dunno. Give what love you can, accept what love you can, and even if I don't know you, know that I love you. After all, I wrote this for you.


	10. Late Nights (aka Lilo and Stitch)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes it feels like you're losing bits of yourself. Good bits. That's okay. You're changing. You're evolving into a better person. And sometimes it's easier to just stay within set guidelines and it feels like you're lost when those guidelines turn out to be wrong or not for you. That's alright. You'll come out alright in the end, even if it doesn't feel like it now. (Also if you need to be sleeping or haven't drunk any water in the past hour you better do that before reading this or so help me.)

“Hey, Noir,” Miles’s voice is quiet, careful not to wake up his parents across the hall once they finish watching _Lilo and Stitch_ on Miles’s laptop, “Mind staying a little longer?”

“Of course not,” Noir agrees easily, sitting down. It’s a bit strange, since it _appears_ as though he’s floating in thin air.

Miles fiddles with his shirt for a few seconds before he asks quietly, “You’re not going to make me tell you why?”

“You don’t want to be alone right now,” Noir shrugs, “I don’t need to know if you don’t want to tell me.”

“Oh. Thanks,” Miles blinks, “Uh, do you want to read a book or something?”

“It’s alright,” Noir reassures him, “You want someone nearby while you fall asleep, right?”

Miles ducks his head down, “It’s a bit childish, right?”

“Nothing wrong about that,” Noir sounds a bit wistful, “You’re a kid. You should be allowed to act like one.”

Miles nods awkwardly, “Peter said that—that everyone got nightmares. Do you?”

Noir frowns at his hands. Fiddles a bit with his hat. “When I first started,” he agrees, “Then as time went on, I went kind of numb. It was harder to feel things. And my dreams went, too. It felt like my whole world was just—“ he cups his hands together, “—empty.”

“Oh,” Miles says. He looks down and then asks, “Do you have anyone in your world to hug you?”

“No,” Noir shrugs, “I try to avoid making friends. It’s too hard.”

No family, either. “Are you going to try?”

Noir is silent for a moment, like he wants to say no but can’t bring himself to, and then he murmurs, “If you want me to, kid.”

“I do,” Miles says, “I don’t want you to be alone.”

“I’m not. I’ve got you and the others.”

“We can’t hug you.”

Noir hums a bit, nods his head, “No,” he agrees reluctantly, as though the words are pulled out of him, “I suppose not. Hugs are—nice.”

“Yeah,” Miles pulls a pillow against his chest, “They are.”

Noir nods again. There’s a beat of silence, and then Noir says, “I used to want nightmares. When I didn’t feel anything. It was awful—like there was nothing inside of me. And I wanted to feel anything, so long as it was something. I didn’t care if it felt bad, I just wanted to feel. But I couldn’t. It was just—“ he flutters his fingers, like billowing ashes floating away over a smoke trail, and falls. Shakes his head, “But it’s so much better now. The world is—brighter. Colourful. It’s amazing.”

Miles squints at Noir, softly glowing pale blue, and then stands up and moves to his bedside drawer. He shuffles a bit through gel pens and paintbrushes before pulling out his old night light and sticking it into an outlet. It casts a butter yellow glow over the room, lighting bits of colour unseen before.

Noir regards it with a tilted head, the shadows on his face strangely inconsistent with the light source in Miles’s room. “It’s lovely,” he says.

Miles nods a bit, crawls back into his blankets where it’s warm. “Yeah,” he agrees, voice creaky, “Hey, Peni said something about working on a temporary portal, right? My world’s got these stickers—star stickers, all types of colours, that glow in the dark. Once the portal’s done—I’ll give you a pack or two. You can put them in your bedroom.”

“Yes,” Noir says. He looks around the room, as though baffled by how just a little bit of light can change it so much, “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Miles says. He feels a bit less scared, now, watching as Noir pulls off his mask and rakes his fingers through his hair. “Thanks for staying with me.”

Noir casts him a slight smile. All his smiles are small, fleeting things, and Miles wants to correct that. “Yeah,” Noir agrees, “It’s no problem, kid. You need a bedtime story or something?”

Miles laughs, “You know any?”

“Mm, not really. I know a few fairy tales, but those things are kind of gory.”

“Yeah. You don’t read often?”

“I spend most of my time working on cases.”

“That doesn’t sound all that great.”

“Yeah,” Noir’s voice is soft. He looks around Miles’s bedroom, “I kept telling myself that was just how it was. But it’s not. I’m making more than enough. I think I just wanted something to distract me from how lonely I was feeling.”

Miles swallows. He wishes Peni had finished the portal, so he could hug Noir, or at least hold his hand. “You have us, now,” he says, “And you will find people in your world. I know you will.”

“I know, kiddo,” Noir lifts his hand a bit, like he wants to ruffle Miles’s hair, and then he lowers his hand. “I’ve been drawing more. I didn’t notice how pretty stuff was when you look at it as just—stuff, instead of evidence.”

“That’s good,” Miles says, “You sleeping enough?”

“Trying to,” Noir smiles at him, “I’m doing my best. Just some days are harder than others.”

“You should call us,” Miles closes his eyes, “like I called you.”

“Yeah,” Noir’s voice is faint, fading, “Thanks, kid.”

__

“There are a lot of scribbled out pages in here,” Ganke says, rifling through Miles’ sketchbook, “What’s up?”

“I hate it,” Miles mutters, “Everything looks stupid.”

“It looks fine to me.”

“It’s not,” Miles shake his head, “It never comes out right.”

Ganke is silent for a moment, taking more time to examine the art beneath before he says, “Doesn’t mean you had to destroy it like that. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be okay.”

“It wasn’t even okay. It was terrible.”

“Why?”

“I rushed it,” Miles turns over and buries his face in his pillow, “I should have taken my time and did things slow. But it ended up coming out stupid and I couldn’t—I hated looking at it.”

“It wasn’t bad, then,” Ganke says, “Just—incomplete.”

“The kind of incomplete that can’t be fixed,” Miles grumbles, “It’s so stupid. I want to redraw it but I get annoyed and want to move on.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah—sorry. This is dumb,” Miles sits up and sets his pillow on his lap, “You just wanted to look through my sketchbook and I’m dumping all these pointless complaints on you.”

“They aren’t pointless. Besides, you listened to me freak out for a full hour about how my program didn’t do what I wanted it to.”

“That’s different. You really love your program and you worked hard on it.”

“Isn’t it the same for your art?”

“You spent a lot of time on your program.”

“But I made mistakes because I wasn’t careful enough,” Ganke shrugs, “It just seems to me like you’re being a bad friend if you _don’t_ complain to me. Equivalent exchange and all.”

Miles throws the pillow at Ganke, “Nerd.”

Ganke throws the pillow back. It hits Miles in the face, “You’re just as nerdy.”

“True. But you’re friends with me.”

“That’s your problem.”

“My _blessing_ , you mean.”

“Ew. Affection. Stop,” Ganke laughs as Miles drops the pillow on his head, “Okay, fine. Affection accepted.”

“Don’t say it like that! You make it sound weird.”

“I hold _affection_ for you—“

“Stoooop.”

“Miles, my one true love, the dearest, most wonderful—“

Miles laughs as Ganke starts to climb the ladder and jerks his head around, mimicking a horror movie spirit, “I’m going to have nightmares, you jerk.”

“That’s your own fault for being a wimp,” Ganke declares and pops onto the bed next to Miles, “All your recent pages are scribbled out. It’s almost two weeks worth of art that you’ve got scribbled out, but you’ve been drawing a _lot_ lately. Maybe you’re just a perfectionist and your stuff isn’t that bad.”

“If it’s not up to my standards, how can it be up to anyone else’s standards?” Miles demands, “And even if everyone else did like it for whatever reason—it doesn’t feel right. When I look at it I hate it.”

Ganke is quiet for a moment before he bumps his shoulder against Miles’. “You know your worth isn’t measured by your skill in art, right?”

Miles rests his head on Ganke’s shoulder, “I know.”

“You do?” Ganke pokes Miles’s cheek, “Or are you just saying that to get me off your back?”

“Stop poking me.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“And you’ll stop poking me?”

Ganke pauses for a moment, considering, and then, as though he is sacrificing a country, sighs, “Fine.”

“I get it,” Miles closes his eyes, “I do. But drawing’s really important to me. It’s always been a part of me. And I get that it doesn’t measure my worth but it isn’t exactly that. It’s more than that. It’s—when my drawing is bad, it feels wrong. If there’s something wrong with the pose or the colours, sometimes I feel like if I’d rather rip my eyeballs out than draw like that. So I scribble it out and usually, I can fix it. And usually, I can make something good, something I’m proud of, at least in the moment. But that takes time. And sometimes I don’t want to spend hours painting something. Sometimes I just want to draw to destress. But I hate what I draw when I’m destressing—does that make sense?”

“I think so,” Ganke raises his eyebrows, “But it’s just a drawing, man. If it comes out bad, that’s alright. And you can take a break.”

“That’s what everyone says,” Miles agrees, “That I should take a break and when I come back I’ll feel better. But I don’t want to take a break. I love drawing. If I don’t draw I feel like I’m going to burst or break into a hundred pieces.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

“I don’t know. I know I should take the time and just try to be patient with it but I feel like I’m going to explode. Like all my patience got sucked out.”

“By aliens?”

“Oh yeah. The same ones that took your cookies.”

“I _know_ it was you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“ _Miles_.”

“Your cookies are delicious. Anyone would have taken them if given the chance.”

“Is that a confession?”

“No, this is me saying your suspect list is limitless and the fact that you would ever accuse _me_ , your _best friend_ , of being a low brow _criminal_ is absolutely asinine and I—“

Ganke pushes Miles over, “You’re so pretentious.”

“I’m not, I just pretend to be.”

“You are what you pretend to be.”

“Am not.”

“Nazis.”

“Oof. Too soon.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Sorry.”

Miles rights himself and whispers, “Thanks, Ganke. You really helped.”

“Yeah, well, you could repay me by not stealing my cookies.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m _Spider-man_ , Ganke, I wouldn’t abuse my powers like that—“

“You know, the fact that you can turn invisible is mighty suspicious especially since my cookies just seemed to vanish out of nowhere and—“

“This is terrible reasoning—“

Ganke and Miles burst into laughter at the same time.

“Want some cookies? I got some over the weekend,” Ganke points at his desk, “Second drawer. We can watch _Robin Hood_.”

“Sounds good,” Miles agrees.

The next morning, taped on top of Ganke’s laptop, is a little doodle of an alien eating a cookie.

“It’s a masterpiece,” he says, bouncing on top of a still-sleeping Miles, “Thank you.”

“Lemme sleep and shove off,” Miles mutters without any heat.

“I love it. Truly, something for the Louvre. The bold use of strokes and—“

“I can push you off the top bunk. Just try me.”

Ganke laughs, “I thought you were a morning person.”

“I was. Before you convinced me to try and have a Phineas and Ferb marathon that lasted past 3am last night.”

“Weak.”

“Maybe. But I still need sleep.”

“Fine. How are you feeling about your art now? Better? Cured? Because of my awesome friendship?”

“I still hate it,” Miles sighs, “But I’ll get over it. Thanks, Ganke. Now please let me sleep?”

“Or we could watch Lilo and Stitch.”

“How dare you tempt me with Lilo and Stitch.”

“Well, I guess if you want to keep sleeping—“

“No, I’m waking up, I’m waking up,” Miles bites back a yawn and he hates his art and drawing feels like a disaster but Ganke is handing him a bottle of water and Lilo and Stitch is playing on the screen and life is more than drawings on paper and Miles thinks it’ll be alright, in the end.

Even if he’s sleep-deprived and Ganke is evil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never feel like you have to force yourself to do something. Or even rush into something you think you'll like. It's okay to take things slow, think it over. It doesn't mean you're falling behind. It means you're making informed decisions to positively impact your emotional and possibly physical, financial, etc. wellbeing. Give yourself time.


End file.
